Today was a largely uneventful return from the extended weekend with bond markets doing very little to react to news or economic reports.  Chicago PMI is hit and miss when it comes to moving markets, but certainly no stranger to the spotlight.  At 48.7 versus a median forecast of 54.0, today's Chicago PMI was arguably weak enough that we should have seen a more noticeable response in bond markets.  Instead, the morning's gains leveled-off just as the data was released.  The rest of the day was spent drifting sideways to slightly stronger, resulting in a smattering of small, positive reprices.

What can we glean from the absence of response to the Chicago PMI data?  Nothing earth-shattering, but perhaps this helps us put the rest of the week in perspective.  First of all, today was "month-end"--a special deadline for certain traders who have to be holding a certain amount of various bonds in order to meet the requirements of the funds they manage.  We can certainly assume that much of that month-end buying had already taken place by last week, but today's morning resilience suggests there were a few more buyers waiting in the wings. 

The more important conclusion for the rest of the week is that there will be a high bar for economic data that would otherwise have an impact on trading levels.  This means we could be waiting at least until Wednesday for something like ADP, but possibly even until Thursday's ECB Announcement or Friday's NFP before seeing a bigger move in rates.

Finally, the default warning on a month-end day with a happy ending is this: there's always a risk that today's happy ending was made possible by the extra month-end buying.  Such days are often good short term lock opportunities.


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
100-16 : +0-07
FNMA 3.5
103-20 : +0-05
FNMA 4.0
106-04 : +0-05
Treasuries
2 YR
0.9340 : +0.0080
10 YR
2.2080 : -0.0138
30 YR
2.9740 : -0.0236
Pricing as of 11/30/15 5:36PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
9:16AM  :  Month-End Tradeflows Offsetting Corporate Supply

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Ted Rood  :  "is there a handy dandy link to VA approved condo complexes that doesn't require a log in?"
Timothy Baron  :  "I tried a few, with no luck. I would say it's impossible, but I believe a couple on here have had success."
Joel Marks  :  "I actually am looking for an answer to this. Is it only job loss and death of a family member that qualifies as an extenuating circumstance?"
Matthew Carver  :  "JY - yes, generally speaking, but check investor overlays and doc requirements to use lease amount."
Jason York  :  "if someone has 2 years history of collecting income on a rental property on their taxes, 2013 and 2014, and then bought another rental property in 2015, I could use 75% of the new property's rental income, correct? Generically speaking."