HowRatesWork

Mortgage rates come from massive pools of capital (e.g., pensions, 401ks, foreign govts, etc) and the managers tasked with investing it. They decide where to put it by grading an investment’s risk. The safest place to invest is a country’s central bank bc it can always print the money it owes. Every other interest rate, including your mortgage, is set based on how much riskier it is than that baseline. Since risk is ultimately an opinion about the future, rates change multiple times a day as quickly as global news and economic expectations shift.