New York, January 10, 2026, 21:14 EST — Market closed.
Lennar Corp shares closed up 8.85% on Friday at $119.25, outpacing a broader market rise and tracking sharp gains across U.S. homebuilders. D.R. Horton jumped 7.80% and PulteGroup added 7.33%. (MarketWatch)
The move followed President Donald Trump’s order for $200 billion in mortgage bond purchases, a step investors read as an attempt to push borrowing costs down and pull would-be buyers back into the housing market. “Every little bit will help push mortgage yields lower,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, while warning the policy could also “increase demand for housing” without fixing the supply problem. (Reuters)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters the goal is to roughly match the Federal Reserve’s monthly roll-off of mortgage-backed securities, which he put at about $15 billion. Mortgage-backed securities, or MBS, are bonds backed by home loans; policymakers and traders watch them because shifts in MBS yields can flow through to mortgage rates. (Reuters)
Still, the policy’s path from headlines to mortgage bills is not clean. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said affordability is “more than just financing,” and Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin called the answer “on the supply side.” UBS analysts estimated the $200 billion buying program could shave about 10 to 25 basis points — 0.10 to 0.25 percentage points — off mortgage rates, a move that may not be enough on its own to reset demand. (Reuters)
The administration’s use of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also reopened an old question on Wall Street: whether the government-backed lenders will ever be re-privatized. “This does not sound like a President who is in a rush to IPO the enterprises,” TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote, while JonesTrading’s Mike O’Rourke argued that if the firms can be used as a “funding arm for Presidential policy,” investors should not expect them to be re-privatized again. (Reuters)
For Lennar and its peers, the week ahead is likely to hinge on two things traders can actually measure: the pace of purchases and whether Treasury yields keep falling. If mortgage rates do not follow, Friday’s rally risks turning into a quick round-trip, especially after such a sharp one-day move.
Lennar is expected to report its next earnings around March 19, according to Zacks, putting the focus on orders, cancellations and pricing power as the spring selling season approaches. (Zacks)
Before that, the next near-term test for rate-sensitive stocks arrives with U.S. inflation data: the Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release December CPI on Tuesday, Jan. 13, at 8:30 a.m. ET. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
