Mortgage Rates Today, May 14, 2026: It's Retail Sales Day!

The bigger picture

Mortgage rates nudged modestly higher yesterday. What's interesting is that they may have been influenced more by that day's inflation report than by events in the Middle East.

That inflation report was April's producer price index (PPI), which measures price changes in the wholesale phase of the supply chain. So, PPI increases that month will likely show up in the consumer price index (CPI) in the coming months.

And the figures the PPI brought were shockingly bad. Producer prices rose 1.4% in April, compared with market expectations of 0.5%. And the year-over-year version of that figure came in at a whopping 6.0%.

Now that bond markets have glanced away from the Middle East to look at the economy here at home, may they begin doing so more often? If so, they may respond to today's retail sales report, also for April.

Scroll on down for details of today's economic reports and how they might affect mortgage rates.

What's coming up?

Although economic reports are usually the main drivers of changes to mortgage rates, they're not the only ones. The general mood in markets and economically consequential news can also affect those rates. News items concerning the war, employment, inflation, tariffs, and deficit funding are especially influential at the moment.

You might have noticed worrying reports in the financial press about the likelihood of inflation getting worse. For example, in an e-newsletter on Sunday, The Economist wrote, "The Iran war is already causing pain for American motorists, who are paying more than $4.50 a gallon for petrol. Now Americans face a grocery-price shock."

On Monday, MarketWatch had similar concerns: "The surge in gasoline prices tied to the Iran war is set to drive U.S. inflation to a three-year high — and it might get worse before it gets better.

" ... That’s not the only downside of higher inflation," the report continued. "The increase in prices has handcuffed the Federal Reserve. The central bank is likely to be stymied from cutting interest rates aggressively, leaving the cost of borrowing painfully high for prospective home buyers and anyone who needs a big loan."

Wednesday's PPI tends to add weight to these pessimistic arguments. And, with inflation rates already so high, Kevin Walsh, who was confirmed yesterday as the new chair of the Federal Reserve, may struggle to deliver the lower general interest rates for which he was nominated.

Bond markets vs. stock markets

Mortgage rates are largely dictated by yields on a type of bond, the mortgage-backed security (MBS). So, we focus on bond markets.

On May 7, The New York Times explored why stock markets and bond markets have been behaving so differently since the start of the conflict in the Middle East.

Investors in stocks have been wagering that U.S. companies will continue to generate large profits during the conflict. And the stock market typically cares only about whether dividends and company values will continue to rise.

"But the bond market is another matter," says The Times. "Bond traders have maintained a much sharper focus on risk. Yields remain correlated with shifts in the price of oil. As oil prices have spiked and inflation has risen, yields have risen and bond prices, which move in the opposite direction, have fallen."

Comerica Bank's weekly preview

On Monday, Comerica Bank published its weekly preview in an e-newsletter:

"This week’s CPI release is forecast to show headline inflation rose toward 4% in April and reached the highest in nearly two years, pushed up by higher gas prices. Core CPI is also forecast to pick up on the month on a hot shelter print. Part of that reflects mechanical catch-up from the gap in shelter price data during last year’s government shutdown. PPI likely accelerated to the fastest since early 2023 in April.

"The April retail sales report will likely come in soft, with consumers spending more at gas stations while reining in discretionary spending elsewhere. Industrial production likely fared better, rising moderately. Existing home sales likely rebounded in April after March’s drop, and are trending similarly to their pace last year. The median existing home's sale price likely rose in the low single digits from a year ago. The federal budget is forecast to swing to a surplus in April, but a smaller one than a year ago as tax cuts reduce revenues and as spending increases on defense and domestic security programs."

Comerica's predictions often differ from market expectations, which are a consensus of a wider pool of analysts' forecasts.

Mortgage rates today

There are four economic reports on today's MarketWatch economic calendar. But we can probably ignore March's business inventories, which bond investors tend to find as interesting as the rest of us do.

Of the remaining three, April's retail sales report is typically the most consequential for mortgage rates. Markets expect those to slow to 0.5% growth from 1.7% in March.

The second most important of today's reports is usually the import price index (IPI). And we guess markets may pay more attention to it than normal, given yesterday's disappointing PPI.

The IPI is expected to show import prices rising by 0.9% in April, slightly faster than March's 0.8%. Higher-than-expected inflation figures tend to be bad for mortgage rates.

The third report will tell us the number of new jobless claims during the week ending May 9, and those are expected to come in at 205,000, slightly more than the previous week's 200,000. But we'll be surprised if this perceptibly affects mortgage rates unless it brings shocking figures.

Mortgage rates tend to fall when a report's actual figures are worse for the economy than expected, and to rise when they're better. When numbers are on or close to forecasts, those rates rarely move in response to the data.

Tomorrow, we're due the industrial production and capacity utilization reports for April, along with the May Empire State manufacturing survey. None of those tends to have much impact on mortgage rates.