Trump orders mortgage bond purchases. These stocks are jumping

Shares in mortgage lenders jumped Friday after President Donald Trump instructed “representatives” to purchase mortgage bonds in an attempt to lower rates for homebuyers.

Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that he was asking unnamed buyers — it wasn’t clear if that meant the Treasury, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or another agency — to buy $200 billion of mortgage bonds. This should bring down both rates and monthly payments, making home ownership more affordable, Trump said.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte later posted that “we are on it.” Trump said he was making the push because Fannie and Freddie — the government-sponsored entities that buy mortgages from banks, credit unions and other original lenders — are sitting on a pile of cash.

Mortgage lender Rocket Companies jumped more than 9% and notched a fresh intraday high going back to 2021. UWM Holdings gained more than 13% in its best day since 2023. Lender PennyMac rose more than 6%.

Artificial intelligence-focused lender Better Home & Finance added more than 6%. Opendoor Technologies — a real estate ecommerce platform that has become a meme stock — surged more than 13%.

White House pressure

Wall Street has long expected the Trump administration to take some sort of action to put downward pressure on mortgage rates. But analysts are now wondering what the actual impact will be for consumers and what it means for lending stocks.

“We read this as the President ordering FHFA Director Bill Pulte to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion of their own MBS to bring down interest rates,” TD Cowen’s Jaret Seiberg wrote to clients, referring to mortgage-backed securities. “This is not a surprise.”

TD Cowen expects the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield to finish 2026 at 3.5%, down from about 4.17% on Friday. That would put downward pressure on 30-year fixed mortgages rates, possibly lowering them to roughly 5.25% from the current 6.2%. The rate on a 30-year mortgage on Friday fell to its lowest levels in almost three years, according to Mortgage News Daily.

If the $200 billion in purchases happened quickly, TD Cowen said mortgage rates could finish the year closer to 5%.

Smaller than expected

But Wolfe Research analyst Tobin Marcus said a $200 billion purchase program is smaller than the firm previously anticipated. The impact on the housing market is likely “positive but fairly modest,” he said.

Bank of America analyst Rafe Jadrosich said lower mortgage rates would bring some relief to house buyers grappling with high rates. For each quarter-point decline in mortgage rates, he estimated a monthly payment on a 30-year fixed loan of $400,000 would drop by as much as $70.

At Morgan Stanley, analyst Jeffrey Adelson now sees UWM and Rocket performing closer to his bull case if mortgage rates move lower. Barclays analyst Terry Ma…