Mon, Apr 8 2024, 11:01 AM
“A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.” April 15th is in a week, the traditional date when taxes are due. Time flies. Do yo...
Fri, Apr 5 2024, 3:37 PM
Bond Market Resilience Suggests More Focus on CPI
Up until the 3pm CME close, the bond market was having a s...
Fri, Apr 5 2024, 2:56 PM
Data dependent... That's a phrase that is all too prevalent in financial markets and among members of the Federal Reserve. It refers to the fact that...
Fri, Apr 5 2024, 11:47 AM
I head to Central Texas today (A53 on Southwest; something about maybe seeing an eclipse); statewide Texas home ownership rate is about 64 percent. Th...
Fri, Apr 5 2024, 11:23 AM
The jobs number came in at 303k this morning versus a median forecast of 200k. Previous month revisions added a minimal 22k to the 3 month total and ...
Thu, Apr 4 2024, 4:33 PM
Mysterious Afternoon Gains Bring Yields Back Into The Range Just Before Jobs Report
It was a surprisingly an...
Thu, Apr 4 2024, 3:59 PM
Mortgage rates may have been able to claim some resilience over the past few days, but it hasn't been a great week in general. The average lender jum...
Thu, Apr 4 2024, 12:02 PM
Thursday is shaping up to be a calmer and less eventful trading day than the two most recent examples. It's similar in the sense that there was some ...
Thu, Apr 4 2024, 11:30 AM
Think you can predict the future? I don’t think so. (Click on that link and think about that caption.) Some foresaw the drop in volume and income afte...
Wed, Apr 3 2024, 4:06 PM
Carbon Copy Day For MBS
The date and underlying events may have changed, but the price action in MBS was str...
Wed, Apr 3 2024, 3:34 PM
After starting the week with a sharp move higher, mortgage rates managed to avoid losing much ground yesterday. This was only achieved with a recover...
Wed, Apr 3 2024, 12:00 PM
The other night, at the Bruce Springsteen concert in San Francisco (it was great), he did a crowd favorite, singing, “Baby I got my facts learned real...
Wed, Apr 3 2024, 11:38 AM
Bonds remain under pressure this week, but the pressure is turning out to be slightly lower than it was earlier this morning. Overnight weakness was ...
Wed, Apr 3 2024, 8:16 AM
Mortgage application activity drifted lower again last week , the third straight week of mostly fractional declines. The Mortgage Bankers Association’...
Tue, Apr 2 2024, 4:00 PM
Technical Breakout in Treasuries. Does it Matter?
Bonds began the day in much weaker territory as Treasuries...
Tue, Apr 2 2024, 3:25 PM
After starting the week with a fairly large jump, mortgage rates had a much calmer day on Tuesday. This was made all the more impressive by the fact ...
Tue, Apr 2 2024, 11:53 AM
“I think it’s disgraceful that after 55 years, people don’t know who Neil Armstrong was… or even the type of trumpet he played.” Time flies. Did you k...
Tue, Apr 2 2024, 11:12 AM
Bonds came into the domestic trading day with additional losses. This wasn't a foregone conclusion, but it was a distinct possibility based on past e...
Mon, Apr 1 2024, 3:54 PM
Positioning and Data Deliver Double Whammy For Bonds
There were no whammies last week as bonds drifted sidew...
Mon, Apr 1 2024, 3:27 PM
March ended with a streak of some of the flattest day-over-day changes in mortgage rates on record. It was all but certain that the new week/month wo...
Mon, Apr 1 2024, 11:44 AM
In real Commentary news, many folks who read this Commentary are workin’ for a livin’, and many of them are managers. On a recent Truv Zoom call, Lowe...
Mon, Apr 1 2024, 9:00 AM
There are two times of morning that could be considered "the open" for the bond market. As far as the futures market is concerned, it's 8:20am as tha...
Thu, Mar 28 2024, 3:22 PM
Some Month-End Volatility Late in The Day
Yields were near 2 week lows 2 hours before the final trades of th...
Thu, Mar 28 2024, 3:01 PM
Unfortunately, we don't have a great way to measure all of the past precedents, but it's safe to say that the this was one of the least volatile weeks...
Thu, Mar 28 2024, 12:24 PM
While the future can't ever be known, this week's base case was for lower volatility, and a general sideways drift heading into the long weekend and b...
Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:50 AM
Here’s a tip of the day for anyone manning a conference booth: instead of a pen, or mouse pad, how about a locally made treat? Hats off to Aimee, Bobb...
Wed, Mar 27 2024, 3:55 PM
Treasury Auction Relief Rally and Month-End Support
With Thursday being a half day before a 3.5 day weekend,...
Wed, Mar 27 2024, 3:44 PM
There are probably only a few 4-day streaks with effectively no movement in mortgage rates, and this is one of them. After falling to 6.91% last Frid...
Wed, Mar 27 2024, 11:55 AM
Could anything be better than Krispy Kreme coming to McDonalds! Yes! The new HMDA data is here! (More of a more serious note below.) Whether donuts or...
Wed, Mar 27 2024, 11:35 AM
There are no significant economic data on tap today. The only notable event is the 7yr Treasury auction (the last of the week) and it's a bit of a st...
Wed, Mar 27 2024, 8:42 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index moved lower last week, apparently indifferent to a slight improvement in mortgage int...
Tue, Mar 26 2024, 4:14 PM
Mixed Performance. Data Hurt. Auction Helped. Little Changed
In the bigger picture, bonds found resistance b...
Tue, Mar 26 2024, 3:44 PM
After moving back under 7% last week (conventional, 30yr fixed, top tier scenario), mortgage rates have been increasingly unlikely to move. Today was...
Tue, Mar 26 2024, 1:53 PM
Sales of newly constructed homes were virtually unchanged in February. The 662,000 seasonally adjusted annual units recorded in during the month was d...
Tue, Mar 26 2024, 12:16 PM
Welcome to day 4 of our unofficial 9 day weekend with limited data and volatility ahead of an actual 3.5 day weekend. Is data truly limited if we hav...
Tue, Mar 26 2024, 11:15 AM
As conjecture swirls about the economic impact of the collapse of the bridge in Baltimore, did you ever notice that when you put the two words "The" a...
Mon, Mar 25 2024, 4:18 PM
Weaker Start, But MBS Outperform
The week got off to a weaker start with most of the losses seen during the ...
Mon, Mar 25 2024, 4:07 PM
Mortgage rates enjoyed a decently strong week last week, with the average top tier conventional 30yr fixed rate moving down to 6.91% by Friday from 7....
Mon, Mar 25 2024, 11:54 AM
Here in Louisville, KY, at the TMC event, this one is making the rounds. “What does a real estate agent’s wife say if she can’t sleep? ‘Honey, tell me...
Mon, Mar 25 2024, 11:01 AM
Monday marks the start of a holiday-shortened week (early close on Thursday and fully closed on Friday) and the beginning of a week that will conclude...
Fri, Mar 22 2024, 5:19 PM
9 Day Weekend For The Bond Market
While it's not technically a 9 day weekend for the bond market, it might a...
Fri, Mar 22 2024, 5:15 PM
As the broader market continued rubbing its eyes in disbelief over the Fed's exceptionally calm attitude on inflation, bonds continued to improve toda...
Fri, Mar 22 2024, 1:44 PM
Rather than easing back from the January level as expected, existing home sales shot significantly higher in February, The National Association of Rea...
Fri, Mar 22 2024, 12:11 PM
In the current regime of bond market movement, traders have been running from one side of the field to the other in an attempt to get in on the action...
Fri, Mar 22 2024, 11:55 AM
I saw a sign recently: “Psychic Fair Cancelled Due to Unforeseen Circumstances.” No one can see into the future, or can read minds, and communication ...
Thu, Mar 21 2024, 4:50 PM
Econ Data Keeps Bonds in Check
Looking solely at the end of day trading levels in the bond market, we could ...
Thu, Mar 21 2024, 4:33 PM
It's Thursday and thus time once again to check in with Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey versus reality. To be fair, it's not that Freddie i...
Thu, Mar 21 2024, 12:40 PM
The global trading community digested yesterday's Fed events in a relatively constructive way overnight. Combined with lackluster manufacturing PMIs ...
Thu, Mar 21 2024, 11:38 AM
“90 percent of bald people still own a comb; they just can't part with it.” Many companies that retained servicing in 2020 and 2021, complete with low...
Wed, Mar 20 2024, 4:32 PM
Surprisingly Calm Reaction to Surprisingly Dovish Fed
With so much apparently at stake heading into today's ...
