Some mortgage pros are already calling May 27, 2009, “Black Wednesday.”

During the day, mortgage rates rose by 0.62%, leading mortgage investors to sell in bulk, and setting the stage for the continued rate rise we saw this past week.

That activity pushed 30-year-fixed rates up 44 basis points for the week that just ended (through June 6) , with BankingMyWay National Mortgage Rate Tracker posting the 30-year rate at 5.10%.

This week try 5.54% - with all indications that rates should keep growing higher.

So what’s the deal?

Mostly, it’s an accelerating concern by foreign investors over the value of U.S. debt  – as amplified by the flight to the stock market, and out of fixed income staples like U.S. Treasury Bonds.

True, it’s a variation of the same old story every week, but investors have finally seemed to realize that the stock market (read: private market) is a much better bet than the U.S. Treasury bond market (read: public market), as doubt grows that the Federal Reserve has any ammunition left to keep interest rates down.

Maybe, investors seem to be saying, the Fed should start to leave things well enough alone. With the economy seemingly growing stronger, at least for the short term, the Fed doesn’t have as much incentive to keep interest rates lower. The thinking here is that other key players, most notably the vaunted U.S. consumer, can step up and take things from here.

Take last Friday’s U.S. jobs report. It was greeted as a positive development (again “for now”), despite the loss of 345,000 jobs for the month of May, and an unemployment rate that rose to 9.4%. But in finance, perception is paramount. Most economists had expected the employment number to come in at 520,000 jobs lost.

That was taken as good news in the economic community and on Wall Street, which posted a gain for Friday (after the jobs report) and is up roughly 2,000 point since early March, when the Dow was withering on the vine at fewer than 6,700 points.

So what does this week’s news mean to new mortgage buyers?

For starters, if you have good credit of 660-and-up, you should still have little problem getting a good mortgage loan in the 5.175%-to-5.25% range. But even this range appears to be high to some disappointed mortgage customers. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage applications declined by 16.2% for the week, with a significant 24.1% drop in refinancing loans.

Consequently, we’re experiencing strange times in the mortgage market. People were begging to get a new loan when rates were at 4.5% - but at a highly competitive rate of 5.2%, buyers seem to be losing interest. Most of these people are looking to refinance, and new homebuyers seem willing to get into the market at low home prices and relatively low mortgage rates.

But, after six weeks of serenity, the landscape is shifting – on an upward slope, once again for this week.

And probably longer.

For your best shot at a great mortgage rate, check out the BankingMyWay Mortgage Rate Search.

And for more smart ways to save, spend, invest and borrow, visit MainStreet.com.

—For more ways to save, spend, invest and borrow, visit MainStreet.com.