Why worries about the coronavirus are pushing mortgage rates down

From cbc.ca

Economists are busy trying to calculate the potential economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak that's currently making its way around the world. But there's one marketplace that is already, quite unexpectedly, quantifying the full force of the bug: mortgages. Rates for fixed- and variable-rate home loans are based on a variety of factors, but one of the biggest is the price that lenders have to pay to borrow money themselves. For fixed-rate Canadian home loans, the benchmark that sets the price that consumer rates are based on is the five-year Government of Canada bond. Investors who covet bonds like that one do so ... (full story)