In an aerial view, two-story single family homes line the streets of neighborhood on Jan. 13, 2026 in Thousand Oaks, California.

Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Mortgage rates surged to their highest level since September on Friday as bond yields moved higher due to the war in Iran.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed loan hit 6.41%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest rate since the first week of September, but still below the 6.78% notched at the same time last year.

Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury, which was up again Friday.

“This is counterintuitive for those who expect bonds to serve as a safe haven in times of uncertainty, but when war has a direct impact on inflation expectations, it’s more than enough to offset any of the safe haven benefit that might otherwise be seen,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.

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Even as rates began rising last week, mortgage demand from homebuyers rose, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, but this week’s new surge could put a damper on the spring season, which is already plagued by other major headwinds.

Lennar, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, reported disappointing first-quarter earnings. Its CEO, Stuart Miller, described headwinds for the broader market as including “high mortgage rates, constrained affordability, cautious consumer sentiment, and geopolitical uncertainty, especially now including the recent conflict in Iran.”

Just two weeks ago, rates had dropped to match a multiyear low, briefly touching 5.99%. Now, any savings from those lower rates is gone.

For someone buying a $400,000 home, around the national median, with 20% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage, the monthly payment is now about $115 more than it would have been two weeks ago.

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A Boeing Co. 737 Max airplane at the company’s manufacturing facility in Renton, Washington, US, on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025.

David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Boeing is set to report this week that it delivered the most airplanes since 2018 last year after it stabilized its production, the clearest sign of a turnaround yet after years of safety crises and snowballing quality defects.

Now, the aerospace giant is planning to ramp up production.

“It’s a long road back from a … shall we say, a rather dysfunctional culture, but they’re making big progress,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace industry consulting firm.

Boeing was forced to scale back production in recent years following two fatal crashes of its popular 737 Max aircraft in 2018 and 2019 and a midair blowout of a door plug from one of its planes in the first week of 2024. The Covid pandemic snarled airplane assembly at both Boeing and its chief rival, Airbus, with supply chain delays and loss of experienced workers, even after the worst of the health crisis subsided.

A Boeing 737 approaches San Diego International for a landing, May 10, 2025.

Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Boeing’s leaders, including CEO Kelly Ortberg — a longtime aerospace executive who came out of retirement to take the top job months after the midair door plug accident — are gearing up to increase production this year of its cash cow 737 Max aircraft and the longer-range 787 Dreamliners.

That could help the manufacturer, the top U.S. exporter by value, return to profitability, as analysts expect this year, territory that was out of reach for seven years as its leaders focused on damage control and were stuck reassuring frustrated airline executives who were awaiting late planes.

Their tone has changed as Boeing has become more predictable and increased production, with the Federal Aviation Administration’s blessing. In a sign of the FAA’s increased confidence in Boeing, the agency in September said Boeing could issue its own air worthiness certificates before customers receive some of its 737s and 787s after years of restrictions.

Boeing’s commercial aircraft business is its largest unit, accounting for about 46% of sales in the first nine months of last year, with the rest coming from its defense and services business. Boeing last reported a full-year profit in 2018.

Investors are optimistic for further improvement. Boeing shares have gained 36% over the last 12 months, outpacing the S&P 500‘s nearly 20% advance.

“Boeing is definitely better and more stable,” said Bob Jordan, CEO of all-Boeing airline Southwest Airlines, in an interview Dec. 10.

The company is scheduled to outline its production plans for 2026 later this month when it reports quarterly results on Jan. 27.

Getting into gear

For Boeing, the recent turnaround has taken place largely on the assembly floor.

Under Ortberg, the manufacturer has slashed so-called traveled work, in which assembly tasks are done out of order, to avoid costly mistakes. The company has made other manufacturing changes, as well, including added training.

The National Transportation Safety Board in June said inadequate training and management oversight had been among the problems at the company, according to its investigation into what led to the door plug blowout in January 2024.

On Dec. 8, Boeing also completed its acquisition of fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems, which Boeing had spun out of the company two decades ago. It now has more direct control of the crucial supplier.

Moving out jets

Boeing handed over 537 aircraft in the first 11 months of last year. It reports December deliveries on Tuesday, but Jefferies estimates the company delivered 61 commercial jets last month, 44 of them Boeing’s bestseller, the 737 Max.

Boeing delivered 348 aircraft in 2024 and 528 in 2023. Last year’s total would still be far off the 806 airplanes it handed over in 2018.

Last October, the FAA raised its production cap on Boeing’s 737 Max from 38 a month to 42. (The FAA required its sign-off after the door plug accident.) CFO Jay Malave said at a UBS conference on Dec. 2 that he expects the company to get to that rate in early 2026. Ortberg told investors in October that further rate increases are on the table, in increments of five planes.

Kelly Ortberg, chief executive officer of Boeing Co., during a media event at the Boeing Delivery Center in Seattle, Washington, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

M. Scott Brauer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Handovers to airlines in 2026 will likely be new production, compared with clearing out older inventory, Malave had said. Boeing is also likely to produce about eight Dreamliners a month as of early this year, he added.

Deliveries are key for airplane makers, because airlines and other customers pay the bulk of an airplane’s price when they receive the aircraft. Boeing’s chief competitor, Airbus, is scheduled to report 2025 orders and deliveries on Monday.

Still, several planes that were expected to already flying passengers aren’t certified yet, including the Boeing 777X as well as the Max 7 and Max 10 variants, depriving Boeing of cash and driving up costs.

Southwest is awaiting the delayed Max 7, the smallest plane of the Max family. The model is important for airline routes that have lower demand so airlines can avoid oversupplying the market with seats, pushing down fares.

Southwest CEO Jordan last month said that he doesn’t expect the airline to fly the Max 7 before the first half of 2027 as Boeing certification work continues. Boeing at one point expected it to enter service in 2019.

“They’re still very short in terms of delivering the aircraft that we need, but I’m glad to see the progress on the Max 7,” Jordan told CNBC.

Robust demand

Orders for both Boeing and Airbus jets look solid, with demand set to continue outstripping supply into the next decade, Bernstein aerospace analyst Douglas Harned said in a note last week.

Airbus outpaced Boeing in deliveries last year, though Boeing appears to have outsold its European competitor in new orders.

Through November, Boeing logged 1,000 gross orders compared with 797 from Airbus. Airline customers have started to look beyond this decade, snagging delivery slots into the mid-2030s as they plot out growth and international expansions.

On Wednesday, Alaska Airlines said it is ordering 105 Boeing 737 Max 10 jets, the longest aircraft of the Max group. Alaska fleet chief Shane Jones told CNBC the order is a sign of “our confidence in the Max 10 certification” as well as “our confidence in Boeing and their turnaround and their ability to produce quality aircraft on time.”

Alaska also exercised options for five 787 Dreamliners for more international routes just over a year after it acquired Hawaiian Airlines — a combination that handed Alaska more Dreamliners and Airbus A330s to reach for destinations that it couldn’t get to before, like Japan, South Korea and Italy.

The wide-body aircraft market is now picking up steam, said Ron Epstein, aerospace analyst at Bank of America, with orders starting to get handed over faster to customers.

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International travel, especially at the high end, has been particularly strong in the years after the pandemic as travelers splash out on vacations around the world. More and more global airlines are looking at snagging long-haul jets like Boeing’s Dreamliner and Airbus’ A330 and A350s for the coming years, heating up the wide-body airplane market, analysts said.

Globally, airplanes flew nearly 84% full in November, the highest level on record, according to the latest data available from the International Air Transport Association, an airline industry group.

With travel demand still robust, orders to replace older jets and secure new ones will continue to fuel growth.

“The magic, if you will, of air transportation is until somebody comes up with a transporter, you know, [like] ‘Star Trek,’ where you sort of vaporize and show up someplace else, we’re going to be flying,” Epstein said.

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Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of software company Atlassian Corp., in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 6, 2023.

Lisa Maree Williams | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Atlassian shares popped 14.9% after the software company blew past Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance expectations.

The stock hit a fresh 52-week high and closed at its highest level since April 2022. It was also the stock’s best day since November.

Adjusted earnings came in at 96 cents per share, ahead of the 76 cents per share projected by analysts polled by LSEG. Atlassian reported revenues of $1.29 billion, versus the $1.24 billion estimate.

For the third quarter, Atlassian said it anticipates $1.35 billion in revenue, above the $1.31 billion LSEG estimate and previous guidance.

Atlassian benefited from robust cloud and data center growth during the period as more customers turned to artificial intelligence solutions. That contributed to 30% subscription revenue growth over the prior year. Atlassian also said it now expects 26.5% cloud growth and 21.5% data center growth for the fiscal year.

“The momentum we’re seeing across the business reinforces our conviction around investments we are making in our key strategic priorities of serving enterprise customers, AI, and the System of Work to deliver durable, long-term growth,” finance chief Joe Binz said in an earnings release.

The Australian company, known for organization software tool Trello, has made a push into the artificial intelligence race alongside megacap technology competitors in recent years. In 2023, the company tapped OpenAI to bring AI capabilities to its Jira and Confluence solutions. Last year, Atlassian debuted its Rovo AI assistant.

Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss cited back-to-back solid quarters and 25 times year-over-year growth in Atlassian Intelligence among the reasons the company should “join the upper echelon” of software companies best situated for generative AI.

“1 million [monthly active users] for Atlassian Intelligence all point to a strong yield against investments in a unified Cloud platform ‘infused with AI’ and an improving enterprise motion. While the valuation gap narrows [after hours], we still see upside in TEAM,” he wrote in a Friday note.

Shares have gained 25% since the start of the year.

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Elon Musk attends a discussion session during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity in Cannes, France, June 19, 2024.

Marc Piasecki | Getty Images

A day after its sharpest rally since 2013, Tesla’s stock on Friday closed at its highest in more than a year as investors and analysts continued to applaud the electric vehicle company’s third-quarter results.

Tesla shares rose 3.4% on Friday to $269.23, its highest finish since September 2023. With the two days of gains, the stock erased its loss for the year and is now up 8.4% in 2024, still trailing the Nasdaq’s 23% increase.

Analysts at Piper Sandler were the latest to bolster their price target following Wednesday’s earnings report. The firm, which already had a buy rating on the stock, said it was increasing its 12-month stock price prediction to $315 from $310 “to reflect higher deliveries and higher margins.”

Tesla shares on Thursday soared 22%, their second-best performance since the company’s IPO in 2010. That came after Tesla reported revenue of $25.18 billion, which just missed analysts’ expectations of $25.37 billion, but was up 8% compared with a year earlier. Tesla reported earnings per share of 72 cents adjusted, topping the average analyst estimate of 58 cents.

Tesla’s profit margins were boosted by $739 million in revenue for environmental regulatory credits, which JPMorgan Chase analysts noted in a report were a “potentially unsustainable driver” of earnings and cash flow. Results were also boosted by $326 million in revenue from FSD, the company’s Full Self-Driving Supervised system. 

CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that his “best guess” is that vehicle growth will reach 20% to 30% next year, citing lower-cost vehicles and the “advent of autonomy.” Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting delivery growth of about 15% for 2025.

When it comes to autonomy, however, Musk has consistently missed his own deadlines for getting products to market. Bernstein analysts wrote in a note after earnings that Musk has a “long history of being overly optimistic about FSD,” adding that research shows “Tesla continues to lag well behind competitors” on robotaxis.

Musk also said on the call that Tesla plans to start production of its recently unveiled Cybercab, a robotaxi with butterfly doors and no steering wheel or pedals, by the end of 2026. He said Tesla would conduct driverless ride-hailing in California and Texas next year in its existing cars, which are not currently safe to use without a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.

With the two-day rally, Musk has now increased his paper wealth by roughly $30 billion, bringing his total net worth to about $274 billion, according to Forbes. That puts him more than $60 billion ahead of the world’s second-richest person, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is a former Tesla board member and a good friend of Musk’s.

Still, Tesla’s stock remains 34% below its all-time high reached in 2021. The company had a brutal first quarter of 2024, with year-over-year deliveries falling and consumers flocking to EVs from a host of competitors.

The competitive risks remain.

In China, companies such as BYD and Geely, along with a new generation of automakers such as Li Auto and Nio, have been ramping up sales. In the U.S., legacy automakers Ford and General Motors are starting to sell more electric vehicles, despite walking back prior electrification commitments.

WATCH: Tesla’s price war is over

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The New York Liberty celebrate after wining the 2024 WNBA Championship against the Minnesota Lynx during Game 5 of the 2024 WNBA Finals on October 20, 2024 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. 

David Sherman | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

It was a big finish for the 2024 WNBA season.

The fifth game of this year’s WNBA Finals between the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty was the most-viewed WNBA finals game in 25 years across all networks, according to ESPN, citing Nielsen data. The game aired on ESPN and topped out at 3.3 million viewers.

The viewership for Game 5 is especially impressive considering the competition for attention Sunday night. Both the National Football League’s “Sunday Night Football” and Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series aired at the same time.

Viewership across the entire WNBA Finals series more than doubled in comparison to last year, a continuation of the growing popularity for the WNBA and women’s sports more broadly.

This year’s finals were helped even more by a close battle between a perennial WNBA powerhouse in the Lynx and a previously championship-less contender in the Liberty. Four of the five games were decided by 5 or fewer points, and two games, including the final, went into overtime. The Liberty eventually prevailed, winning 67-62 in front of their home crowd.

The impressive viewership caps off a WNBA season that saw viewership, engagement and attendance up across the board.

The league is also fresh off a new media rights deal, which is negotiated as part of the National Basketball Association’s agreement with broadcast partners. The leagues’ new deal is worth $2.2 billion over 11 seasons, with an agreement to reevaluate the terms after the 2028 season, CNBC previously reported.

And there’s room to run for the WNBA: Several new teams will debut over the next couple of seasons, with the Golden State Valkyries beginning play in the 2025 season. Next year will also have 44 regular season games instead of 40, as well as a seven-game finals instead of five.

The Women’s National Basketball Players Association said Monday it would opt out of the collective bargaining agreement it had earlier reached with the league. The current CBA will still be in place for the 2025 season, according to the Associated Press.

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