Mortgage backed securities had another losing day yesterday moving lower in price by .375 in discount. Many lenders did reprice for the worse as the losses held through close. The stock market is one of the driving forces behind bond market losses at the moment as bond traders are taking some of their cues about the long term economic outlook from current stock performance. Sparking the stock market rally was the much better than expected earnings from Goldman Sachs and Johnson and Johnson. If stocks gain, it puts a damper on the safety-oriented mentality that can spur demand for bonds like treasuries and MBS. Although MBS have lost a fair amount of ground recently, bond and stock traders alike are waiting for additional data before a firm trend is likely to develop. This includes several of the more anticipated earnings announcements as well as the scheduled economic data. Of particular importance, according to many market participants, are earnings from JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citi. Once those chips are down and this reasonably busy week of data is over, there is a higher potential for a trend to develop in MBS for better or worse.
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