On an otherwise quiet morning, bond markets had been holding in reasonably strong territory.  MBS and Treasuries began the domestic session at slightly weaker levels, but found support with most of yesterday's gains intact.  There was no significant economic data this morning and no notable headlines until 9:50am.

Then the Greece-related headlines started to hit wires.  The gist was that Greece's creditors are/were close to working out a debt deal.  The timing and composition of the news was odd.  No one was expecting any such announcement today, and the details seemed sketchy, at best.  Still, markets took it seriously at first.  Treasury yields spiked modestly, led by a more sincere spike in German Bund yields.  (Germany has been the biggest safe haven for sovereign debt in Europe and thus stands to lost the most ground if things improve for Greece.)

Shortly thereafter, the true colors of the news began to shine through.  The turning point was this little gem:

RTRS - GREEK GOVT OFFICIAL SAYS PROBLEM OF DIFFERENCES AMONG CREDITORS REMAINS, DEAL WOULD HAVE CLOSED ALREADY IF IMF'S AGREEMENT WAS NOT REQUIRED

This made the whole affair look very much like an attempt to twist the IMF's arm over the upcoming debt payment deadline in early June.  Bonds quickly ceased their selling efforts as soon as that headline hit the wires, and yields have gone no higher since then.  

By 11am, an EU official was on the record saying that  the EU couldn't confirm that a debt deal had been drafted.  It was a somewhat equivocal statement that implied something could actually be in the works.  Markets have traded accordingly with bonds still no weaker than the original sell-off, but not yet returning to the morning's previous range. 

The next hurdle is the 5yr Note Auction at 1pm.  Given the recent fluctuations in the yield curve, it could have more of an impact than normal (it typically doesn't have much, if any impact).


MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
100-31 : -0-04
FNMA 3.5
104-06 : -0-03
FNMA 4.0
106-20 : -0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6640 : +0.0500
10 YR
2.1670 : +0.0250
30 YR
2.9180 : +0.0160
Pricing as of 5/27/15 12:04PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
10:03AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Negative Reprice Risk Comes and Goes (Hopefully Stays Gone)

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Jason Anker  :  "update from FNMA When a revolving account is being paid off at or prior to closing, the current policy requires lenders to document that the revolving account has also been closed in order to exclude the payment from the debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. The Selling Guide has been updated to remove the requirement that the revolving account be closed. Going forward, revolving accounts that are paid down to zero at closing may remain open and no monthly payment needs to be included in the DTI ratio."
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- GREEK GOVT OFFICIAL SAYS PROBLEM OF DIFFERENCES AMONG CREDITORS REMAINS, DEAL WOULD HAVE CLOSED ALREADY IF IMF'S AGREEMENT WAS NOT REQUIRED"
Matthew Graham  :  "ahh... this is IMF arm-twisting... "
Matthew Graham  :  "Greek Govt Officialy says "Look! A Unicorn!""
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- GREEK GOVT OFFICIAL SAYS SAYS DEAL WILL INCLUDE NO WAGE AND PENSION CUTS, VAT REFORMS, INVESTMENT PACKAGE AND LONG-TERM DEBT RELIEF"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - GREEK GOVT OFFICIAL SAYS PM TSIPRAS WILL HAVE CONSTANT COMMUNICATION WITH LEADERS CONCLUDE A DEAL"
Matthew Graham  :  "I don't know VB. Looks like HAMP for Greece"
Matthew Graham  :  "BN*GREEK DEAL TO ALSO INCLUDE LONG TERM SOLUTION ON DEBT: OFFICIAL"
Victor Burek  :  "what does that mean?"
Matthew Graham  :  "BN*GREECE, CREDITORS STARTED CRAFTING STAFF LEVEL ACCORD: OFFICIAL"
Ira Selwin  :  "Encompass Outage: We're currently investigating an outage to Encompass for multiple clients. The error being received is "Unable to connect to server". Teams are currently working to identify cause and resolution. (5/27/15 5:31am PT) "
Scott Lushing  :  "is ellie mae/encompass down?"
Jeff Anderson  :  "Haven't seen too much commentary on both Yellen and Fischer, the smart one, saying don't expect the Fed to consistently raise rates when they do begin raising them as the Fed has done before. No one believes them?"