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If you are looking for some hard data that shows why mortgage rates "took the elevator" up last week, here are some statistics to amaze your friends:

• Mortgage-backed securities lost 84 basis points over 5 days
• Fed Futures currently price a greater chance that the Fed will raise the FFR in May than it will lower it
• Since January 5, the Fannie Mae 30-Year 5.5% bond closed worse on 81% of trading days and has worsened in pricing by 146 basis points
• Since December 5, the same bond has been down on 23 of 36 days, or 63.89% of the time

If we look back at my posts from around December 5 -- the date that rates began to worsen on the whole -- we see a lot of talk about weakness in the economy and dangerous technical patterns.

My, how quickly things can change.

Dan Green is an active loan officer. Email or call 513-443-2020. Dan is on Twitter at @mortgagereports.