Mortgage rates just fell below 6%, but not for the reasons Trump wants
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- Mortgage rates dropped below 6% for the first time since 2022 on Monday.
- The drop came as Treasury yields fell in recent days amid new trade-war concerns.
- The president announced a 15% global tariff over the weekend, sparking a flight to safety in markets.
Mortgage rates dipped below a key threshold this week. That could be a boon for Donald Trump's affordability push, but it's not necessarily for the reason the president wants.
The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage in the US dropped to 5.99% on Monday, per the Mortgage News Daily Rate Index. That's the lowest borrowing costs have been for prospective home buyers since 2022. The decline has been driven by the latest decrease in Treasury yields.
However, rather than pricing in lower rates in the medium-term, which is what Trump wants to see, government bond yields have dropped because investors are freaked out again about the trade war.
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury declined in the days since the Supreme Court struck down most of Trump's tariffs, dropping five basis points on Monday alone.
The president's response to the ruling that he would initiate a new global tariff of 15% has reignited investors' fears about the trade war.
Though most of Trump's tariffs have been struck down, the prospect of a 15% universal tariff, combined with the sell-off in tech driven by AI in recent weeks, has caused investors to flee to safety.
JPMorgan said on Monday that the risk-off move has caused yields to spike. Investors are grasping for safe havens amid a new cocktail of market worries, David Morrison, a senior market analyst at Trade Nation, told Business Insider, pointing to the concurrent rise in hedges like gold. The metal is up about 4% in the last five days.
The 10-year yield has plummeted to its lowest levels so far this year, and now looks "very close" to its low in April 2025, around the time Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs sparked investor panic and a historical sell-off, according to Nicholas Colas, the co-founder of DataTrek Research.
"We are, in other words, in pretty unusual territory," Colas wrote in a recent note.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.