Thu, Nov 5 2020, 2:02 PM
The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time, thereby promoting its maximum ...
Thu, Nov 5 2020, 10:29 AM
With Nevada’s 6 electoral college votes, nothing says 2020 like the fate of the nation resting in the hands of Reno. When sending out a daily commenta...
Thu, Nov 5 2020, 9:17 AM
Heading into the election, the dominant trading theme was "sideways to slightly weaker" for both stocks and bonds. Now, before you point to the fact ...
Wed, Nov 4 2020, 3:53 PM
Yesterday, we discussed the fact that many mortgage lenders got defensive ahead of election night uncertainty. In the mortgage world, when lenders get...
Wed, Nov 4 2020, 3:52 PM
Big Rally on Election Revelations
Fairly early in the domestic session, markets rapidly came to the realizat...
Wed, Nov 4 2020, 9:15 AM
Before last night, polls, betting odds, talking heads, prediction experts, and your Aunt Mabel all agreed Biden would be the next president. Financia...
Wed, Nov 4 2020, 8:15 AM
An increase in refinancing carried overall applications onto the plus side of the ledger during the week ended October 30. The Mortgage Bankers Associ...
Tue, Nov 3 2020, 3:43 PM
10yr Yields at 0.96% a Best-Case Starting Point For a Bad Reaction in Bonds
The election (referring both to ...
Tue, Nov 3 2020, 10:49 AM
The Urban Institute's (UI's) Housing Finance Policy Center has updated its credit availability index (HCAI) to reflect data for the second quarter of ...
Tue, Nov 3 2020, 10:27 AM
CoreLogic's estimate of the annual home price appreciation in September is not nearly as high as that published yesterday (over 14 percent) by Black K...
Tue, Nov 3 2020, 10:22 AM
What are companies doing with the 2020 money they were going to spend on travel and entertainment? Saving it for the second half of 2021? Last week I ...
Tue, Nov 3 2020, 9:14 AM
Here we are at last on the final trading day before the bond market receives what could be its biggest of actionable information since the initial sur...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 3:23 PM
Mortgage rates move higher and lower all the time, but truly massive moves tend to arrive with many months (if not years) in between. The trade war in...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 3:18 PM
MBS Struggle to Hold Gains, But Rates Aren't Scared Yet
Bonds were mixed today with both MBS and Treasuries...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 1:47 PM
Black Knight concurs with an earlier forecast from the Mortgage Bankers Association, that 2020 will have a higher level of mortgage originations in 20...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 12:37 PM
Overall construction spending was flat in September, held down by a drop in public sector projects. The U.S. Census Bureau said total expenditures dur...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 9:44 AM
Some would say that the year is either flying by, others would suggest it is slowly bumping along the bottom. Either way, here we are in November, and...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 9:12 AM
There were already roughly 400k 10yr Treasury futures contracts traded by 8am today. A typical overnight session runs in the 100-300k range. Volume ...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 7:20 PM
The 2016 election won't soon be forgotten in the mortgage or bond markets. Many of the predictions were dead wrong when it came to how interest rates ...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 4:09 PM
Traders Running For Sidelines Ahead of Next Week's Election
Big losses in both stocks and bonds today as tra...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 11:54 AM
Both GSEs reported financial results for the third quarter of 2020 that were significantly higher than both their Q2 2020 and their 2019 numbers . Fan...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 10:52 AM
The topic of month-end trading comes up frequently over the years. Reason being: we often see market momentum on the last few days of any given month...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 10:12 AM
The number of loans in COVID-19 related forbearance plans rose during the past week, driven by both an increase in new plans and significantly fewer b...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 10:06 AM
Hidden in the Q3 report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on Thursday, which showed a rebound of 33.1 percent from the 31.4 percent loss in Q2 was news ...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 9:47 AM
Happy X/XXX/XX if you are a Roman. Rome certainly had its share of slaves, and the existence of slavery in one’s family has certainly caused consterna...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 4:50 PM
Technicals And Fundamentals Join Forces to Deliver Warning For Rates
Whether we're talking about the week as...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 2:54 PM
It was a bit of a bittersweet day for mortgage rates . On the one hand, it was the Fed's first day buying a new category of mortgage-backed bonds--one...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 11:17 AM
Let's do the simply-worded conclusion right up front. For fans of low rates, the Fed's inclusion of 1.5 MBS (30yr) is a good thing, but not some ne...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 10:21 AM
Pending home sales faltered a bit in Septembe r, like new home sales announced earlier this week, the decline ended a four-month winning streak. The N...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 9:43 AM
This weekend we receive an extra hour of 2020. If there was ever a reason to end the time change, this certainly is it! Markets don’t like uncertainty...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 5:10 PM
When interest rates plummeted in response to the early realities of the pandemic back in March/April, mortgage rates did a terrible job of keeping pac...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 5:09 PM
Bonds Struggle to Hold Gains Despite Stock Rout
As of the 3pm CME close, 10yr yields were higher on the day....
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 11:59 AM
The percentage of potential home buyers who perceive housing in their market as affordable increased in the third quarter, at least as reported in a r...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 11:52 AM
Surely not everyone was kung fu fighting, right? I hope that we don’t see any fighting after November 3. I love to ask people, who think we’re going t...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 11:43 AM
Mortgage application volume rose slightly during the week ended October 23. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a ...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 10:03 AM
October has been unpleasant for the bond market--Treasuries specifically. That's not to say it's been a walk in the park for MBS. They too have lost...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 4:45 PM
Mortgage rates are mostly determined by the trading levels of mortgage-backed bonds on the open market. When those bonds improve, mortgage rates move ...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 4:33 PM
Bonds Looking Better This Week, But Risks Remain
Today's release of FHFA's home price index showed a sharp a...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 12:07 PM
The U.S. homeownership rate in the third quarter fell back slightly from the prior quarter. The second quarter saw the highest level for homeownership...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 11:33 AM
We'll start off with more of an industry-specific curiosity (as opposed to diving right into markets/rates). Then again, the conforming loan limit is...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 11:23 AM
The impact of low interest rates and pent up buyer demand played out in sharply increasing home prices in August. Both the Federal Housing Finance Age...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 11:00 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 17.5 percent in September compared to a 27.7 perce...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 10:55 AM
Etch A Sketch is buying Rubik's Cube? Who can keep up? What does a lender do when they’ve hit operational capacity, and don’t want to disappoint LOs w...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 3:47 PM
Mortgage rates were lower today for the average lender, but just how low remains a matter of great debate. To be fair, there's no active debate raging...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 3:36 PM
Rising Rate Trend Changing Course or Just Leveling Off?
After a modest day of gains on Friday, bonds covered...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 11:04 AM
New home sales declined in September for the first time since April. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said s...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 10:59 AM
The number of serious delinquencies dropped in September according to Black Knight. The 43,000 decline in the number of loans that were 90 or more day...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 10:57 AM
The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present. Vendor M&A is rampant (the latest being First American acquiring Ser...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 10:36 AM
We knew that bonds would be forced to accept more volatility in October, if for no other reason than September's progressive and ultimately complete a...
Fri, Oct 23 2020, 6:26 PM
Another week, another glut of news articles claiming mortgage rates are at all-time lows. While no one is intentionally trying to deceive you, the new...
