Fri, Apr 21 2017, 10:30 AM
Sales of existing homes surged in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.71 million, rising 4.4 percent from an unexpected decline in Februar...
Fri, Apr 21 2017, 9:28 AM
The origins of job interviews? Here you go . And speaking of employment, yesterday the commentary mentioned companies coming and going. Here in Florid...
Fri, Apr 21 2017, 9:11 AM
It remains to be seen whether all the hype is justified, but for whatever reason, markets are transfixed by this weekend's French election. Several r...
Fri, Apr 21 2017, 5:23 PM
Today was shaping up to be very slow and boring, with bond markets making some inconsequential gains as traders shed risk ahead of this weekend's Fren...
Fri, Apr 21 2017, 4:28 PM
Mortgage rates were sideways to slightly higher this week as global financial markets braced for volatility surrounding this weekend's French election...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 11:29 AM
Calling the reform of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "the last piece of unfinished business from the 2008 fina...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 9:41 AM
Do you think your small competitor is going to be around at the end of 2017? Perhaps. But I am reminded of some Deloitte research from late 2015 that ...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 9:11 AM
"Consolidation" has a bit of a different connotation when it comes to financial markets (as opposed to the dictionary definition of "the process of ma...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 5:30 PM
Europe has been the driving force for US bond markets over the past 2 days. Perhaps this will continue to be the case or perhaps it's simply due to...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 4:44 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today as global financial markets shifted ahead of this weekend's election in France. One of the candidates--Le Pen--is a ...
Thu, Apr 20 2017, 3:44 PM
There are bad days, and worse days, and there are days like Ocwen Financial Corporation (OFC) had on Thursday. The company was not only sued on multip...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 11:27 AM
Fannie Mae has moved its projected timeline for further Federal Reserve price hikes forward by several months. The company's Economic & Strategic Rese...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 9:16 AM
The English language is always changing. For example, when did “blackstone” become a verb, as in, “I was ‘blackstoned’ last week and will start collec...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 9:03 AM
Despite a slight uptick in applications for refinancing, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports a downturn in overall application volume durin...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 8:49 AM
When your career is directly impacted by bond market trends, and when you watch those trends on a nitty gritty, intraday level, one of the most insidi...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 4:47 PM
There are a lot of pieces on the board at the moment for the bond market rally that's been intact since mid-March. That rally began with a friendli...
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 4:01 PM
Mortgage rates were steady to slightly higher today, depending on the lender, despite bond market weakness. Typically, bond market weakness results in...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 10:14 AM
Once again, the pace of both residential construction permits and housing starts reversed direction, repeating, in March, the up and down pattern that...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 9:36 AM
There are plenty of companies out there, banks and non-banks, trying to raise money. Since lots of folks like lists, let’s start Tuesday with the top ...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 9:25 AM
While there is more economic data on the calendar today, bond markets continue to look elsewhere for inspiration. Geopolitical risks, fiscal policy, ...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 5:18 PM
One of these days we may be forced to conclude that bonds simply WANT to be rallying , regardless of the justification. One day it's Syria. The nex...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 5:05 PM
The housing inventory, or lack of it, dominates Freddie Mac's Outlook for April. The company's Economic and Housing Research team says the supply of f...
Tue, Apr 18 2017, 3:50 PM
After stumbling just slightly yesterday, mortgage rates returned to their recent habit of setting new 2017 lows today. At this point, we're getting cl...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 10:44 AM
Even though overall builder confidence retreated from March levels, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) called the April reading of the N...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 9:24 AM
“It was a Monday, a day like any other day. I left a small town, for the apple in decay” - so sang Foreigner many years ago. But the Big Apple’s real ...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 9:09 AM
On Good Friday (when markets were closed), both Retail Sales and the Consumer Price Index came out weaker than expected. Of particular interest i...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 4:57 PM
Today was destined to be a lower-volume session simply because it's the Monday after Good Friday. That means many US market participants are still ou...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 3:47 PM
For the third day in a row, mortgage rates set new 2017 lows this morning. But as bond markets weakened into the afternoon, several lenders recalled r...
Mon, Apr 17 2017, 3:42 PM
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has inviting comment periods on changes to its Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reporting rule. CFP...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 12:07 PM
Mortgage rates set new 2017 lows for the third straight day today, although only in terms of "effective rates" (which take upfront costs into account)...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 11:59 AM
Despite a terrible fourth quarter, independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks managed to have a slightly more profitable ...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 11:41 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says it appears that new home sales were exceptional strong in March. Its Builder Application Survey (BAS) show...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 9:16 AM
The Trump administration is working to revise or replace the Dodd-Frank Act, President Donald Trump told a group of CEOs. House Financial Services Com...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 8:44 AM
This holiday-shortened 3.5-day trading week has quickly become a brave new world for bond markets. Actually, it might be better characterized as a ...
Thu, Apr 13 2017, 4:07 PM
Heading into Good Friday weekend, it's not uncommon for bond markets to retrace whatever the trend happens to be earlier in the week. In other words,...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 11:53 AM
Early state mortgage delinquencies are an important measure of mortgage market health, and CoreLogic reports they are continuing to decline . In Janua...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 9:24 AM
“Marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut and a woman who can’t sleep with the window ope...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 9:07 AM
Yesterday, it became increasingly clear in the middle of the trading session that bond markets were responding to the "risk-off" trading motivations...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 8:26 AM
The volume of mortgage applications reversed a three-week losing streak to rise 1.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis last week. The Mortgage Ban...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 6:47 PM
Friday was exciting for a short while. Following the weaker-than-expected NFP, 10yr yields briefly broke below 2.27--emphasis on "brief." Friday qui...
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 5:20 PM
Mortgage rates continued lower today, bringing them even deeper into new lows for 2017. Bond markets (which underlie rate movement) were already doing...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 11:14 AM
While home sales in 2016 were the strongest in years, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said on Tuesday there was a shift in their compositi...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 11:07 AM
Soaring prices are hitting the vacation home market, as a growing number of Americans now choose to rent rather than buy their beach and mountain home...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 9:17 AM
Renter households appear increasingly willing to stay as such, per Freddie Mac. The company has released results from its latest renter survey, conduc...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 9:09 AM
TD research finds rising home prices have driven up equity so much tha t 33% of millennial homeowners now say they are considering applying for a home...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 9:01 AM
(NOTE: If you're subscribed to receive MBS Commentary emails, you will have received last Friday's Recap in error this morning. Sorry for the confusi...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 8:14 AM
As the headline suggests, NFP (the "nonfarm payrolls" component of the big jobs report) was much weaker than expected today (98k vs 180k forecast). O...
Tue, Apr 11 2017, 4:30 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower today--significantly in some cases--with the average lender making it back to 2017's lows for the first time since January....
Mon, Apr 10 2017, 9:03 AM
In response to a note I had Friday about Domino’s Pizza being required to post all 34 million calorie combinations of its pizzas, ThomsonReuters’ Mich...
Mon, Apr 10 2017, 8:58 AM
The 2nd week of April begins with bonds threatening to embark on another bounce inside the post-election trading range (10yr yields from 2.30-2.64, ...
