Metals are in a runaway bull market punctuated by silver, which just shattered a record, crossing $90 for the first time.

Why is this news of any consequence for mortgages?

Because this sort of move has a nasty habit of messing with interest rates.

Here’s why...

And if macro makes your eyes glaze over, hear me out — this is no bedtime story.

Yields popped early in the day thanks to the latest Trump–Powell episode. Traders sobered up by lunchtime, dragged rates back down, and left them hovering just above unchanged.

While Monday’s headlines were heavy on political noise, markets now await clearer inflation signals from Tuesday’s U.S. CPI.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s independence is the backbone of its inflation-fighting credibility.

That's why, before Trump, most U.S. presidents—Johnson and Nixon excepted—avoided overt political pressure on the Fed.

Trump, of course, completely ignored that long-standing norm, calling Fed Chair Powell:

• “Too Angry, Too Stupid, & Too Political”
• “Mr. Too Late”
• “Major Loser”
• “A stupid person” / “not smart”
• "Mental"

Trump said he’d “love to fire his ass.”

But none of that got the President what he wanted: 100 to 300 bps of rate cuts, ideally yesterday.

After insults failed to move the needle, the Trump-led Justice Department recently decided to try a fresh angle.

We got a small update on OSFI's mortgage stress test plans this week.

Here's what we know...

Few economic releases move mortgage rates more than the monthly jobs numbers. This time, however, rate traders treated them like background noise.

While they don't make for sensational headlines, today’s labour data reinforces rate stability, and that counts for something.

Markets took their cues from a grab bag of labour, trade, and commodities data, alongside a growing chorus of armchair central bank quarterbacks. The result was a familiar story: yields edged higher on hard data and leaned lower on policy chatter.

All eyes now move to Friday’s labour numbers.

Tumbling crude prices and job openings weighed down yields on Wednesday. But resilient PMIs keep insisting the economy has more fight than the headlines suggest.