Thu, Mar 30 2023, 10:11 AM
It’s important to be stylish; just ask Pope Francis. (Page down once or twice to see the fake image. And we wish the 86-year-old a speedy recovery fro...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 5:03 PM
For the second day in a row, mortgage rates didn't move nearly as much as they have been moving on any given day during the past 3 weeks. This is a r...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 4:44 PM
Another Boring (But Resilient) Day
After the past few weeks, boring trading days aren't necessarily unwelcom...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 3:07 PM
January was a refreshingly strong month for many economic reports, but especially for metrics relating to the housing and mortgage markets. This wasn...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 12:10 PM
In the wake of bank failures earlier in the month, stock prices and bond yields had been highly correlated. This is a more normal trading pattern for...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 10:35 AM
Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, “I've lost my electron.” The other asks, “Are you sure?” The first replies, “Yes, I'm positive.” (Yes, its cutting-...
Wed, Mar 29 2023, 8:07 AM
Applications for both home purchases and refinancing rose for the fourth time during the week ended March 24. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) s...
Tue, Mar 28 2023, 5:09 PM
The week began with a noticeable uptick in mortgage rates relative to last week's lows. Today's momentum continued in the same direction, but with le...
Tue, Mar 28 2023, 4:59 PM
The Most Boring Trading Day in Weeks
Bond market volatility exploded on March 10th after the failure of Sili...
Tue, Mar 28 2023, 11:29 AM
Some people might like the idea of perpetual appreciation in the housing market, but others know that the industry was badly in need of a cool-down af...
Tue, Mar 28 2023, 10:20 AM
The week began with a somewhat sharp sell-off. This followed the steady selling pressure in bonds seen last Friday (albeit after the lowest opening y...
Tue, Mar 28 2023, 10:17 AM
John F. Kennedy has been gone nearly 60 years, and Jackie Kennedy (Onassis) nearly 30, but the couple still resonates with people. The first home that...
Mon, Mar 27 2023, 4:18 PM
Mortgage rates hit their lowest levels in just over 6 weeks on Friday as investors braced for bad news in the banking sector. Such fears tend pull mo...
Mon, Mar 27 2023, 3:53 PM
Bonds Buyers Back Off as Banks Bounce
Bank health continues to dominate the news cycle with investors buying...
Mon, Mar 27 2023, 10:36 AM
“Once you lick the frosting off of a cupcake, it becomes a muffin. And muffins are healthy. You’re welcome.” Adding another expense to a transaction i...
Mon, Mar 27 2023, 9:26 AM
Bond yields began rising at 2am this morning when news broke regarding the acquisition of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). First Citizens bank will acquire...
Fri, Mar 24 2023, 4:40 PM
Bonds Manage to Hold Gains Despite Risk Recovery
Everything has been driven by the "risk-on, risk-off" movem...
Fri, Mar 24 2023, 10:07 AM
The old sign on the trading floor that proudly boasted we had gone 2 days without a systemic banking flare-up (as of yesterday) has been reset to "0,"...
Fri, Mar 24 2023, 9:49 AM
“I got stuck in a conversation with some wealthy people and one woman asked me how my investments were doing. I replied that both avocadoes should be ...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 4:21 PM
Over the course of the past two days, the average conforming 30yr fixed rate has moved down to the lowest levels since early February for most lenders...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 3:56 PM
Bonds Improve on Late Day Risk Aversion; Thoughts on Liquidity
Bonds began the day in slightly weaker territ...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 12:11 PM
The Fed cleared a lot up for the market yesterday by confirming that inflation still matters, but that systemic banking problems also matter. Powell ...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 12:08 PM
New home sales surprised everyone in January, surging by 7.5 percent to 670,000 units, the highest rate since March 2022. It was, however, only an il...
Thu, Mar 23 2023, 9:53 AM
Things are always changing. No bagpipe player I saw growing up looked, or played, like this. The MBA’s forecast for 2023 volumes changed, and here’s t...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 5:05 PM
There was some debate as to whether or not the Federal Reserve would hike the Fed Funds Rate today, although the consensus was for a 0.25% increase. ...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 4:55 PM
Why Bonds Are Rallying Despite a Fed Hike and a Stubborn Dot Plot
Today promised to be one of the most inter...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 2:02 PM
Recent indicators point to modest growth in spending and production. Job gains have been robust picked up in recent months, months and are runn...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 11:19 AM
It's difficult and probably not that important to rank today's Fed day against other iterations over the past few years. It's easy to say that it is ...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 10:22 AM
Overheard last night in Northern California: “’The Empire Strips Back’” is the best parody show I’ve ever seen.” I only mention that because life goes...
Wed, Mar 22 2023, 8:28 AM
A second week of declining interest rates prompted another increase in mortgage activity last week, the third in as many weeks. The Mortgage Bankers A...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 4:24 PM
Banking sector fears were responsible for a nice little drop in mortgage rates over the past 2 weeks. As those fears subside (to some extent, anyway)...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 3:50 PM
Stocks and Bond Yields Moving Higher Together; Fed on Deck
Today's trading session turned out to be every bi...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 1:09 PM
Existing home sales emerged, at least temporarily, out of a prolonged slump last month, and weren’t even shy about it. The National Association of Rea...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 10:29 AM
The way bond math works, every man, woman, and child that owns a fixed-income security issued when rates were lower is now underwater on that bond or ...
Tue, Mar 21 2023, 10:05 AM
Relative to the presence of important market developments and high volatility, the current landscape for bonds is surprisingly simple. The banking pa...
Mon, Mar 20 2023, 4:13 PM
Let's start today's rate coverage with a public service announcement on the best way to be a consumer of mortgage rate data online. It can be quite ...
Mon, Mar 20 2023, 3:55 PM
Absence of Data Leaves Even More Focus on The Fed
If there happened to be some significant economic data tod...
Mon, Mar 20 2023, 9:43 AM
“SMONDAY: The moment when Sunday stops feeling like a Sunday and the anxiety of Monday kicks in.” Do you think the shareholders and management of Cred...
Fri, Mar 17 2023, 4:48 PM
There’s certainly a chicken/egg problem when it comes to interest rate news. Is it the Fed’s decisions that move rates? Or do market forces move rates...
Fri, Mar 17 2023, 4:46 PM
Simple, Boring, Half Point Rally in MBS
There won't be too many days with a half point MBS rally that are as...
Fri, Mar 17 2023, 10:32 AM
It hasn’t been a good few weeks for banks whose names begin with “Si” (Silvergate, Silicon Valley, and Signature, with Silicon Valley Bank declaring C...
Fri, Mar 17 2023, 9:59 AM
While there are no new bank failures in play, financial markets have traumatic memories from last Friday and last weekend. Better safe than sorry hea...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 4:04 PM
Bank Lifelines Lead Bond Market Reversal
Financial markets continue feeling out prospects for global banking...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 4:00 PM
Mortgage rates are ideally determined only once per day, several hours into the business day. This gives mortgage lenders time to observe a baseline ...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 1:48 PM
It didn’t approach the levels of the “good old days” of 2020 and 2021, but construction activity did show signs of life last month. The U.S. Census Bu...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 11:21 AM
While yesterday's Credit Suisse concerns were serious, the last official major bank failure happened 5 days ago. That's a very long time considering t...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 10:16 AM
Have to buy something for someone in your life who has everything? If they’re a basketball fan, how about food smoked with the same type of wood used ...
Wed, Mar 15 2023, 4:17 PM
Does Credit Suisse qualify as a "big bank" anymore? The company could be argued to be circling the drain for many months, but nonetheless holds hundr...
Wed, Mar 15 2023, 4:03 PM
You Have Gone Zero Days Without a Systemic Contagion Flare-Up
As of Tuesday, the global financial market was...
Wed, Mar 15 2023, 11:35 AM
The Ides of March… And college basketball time. Here in Kentucky (men #6 in the East, Louisville women’s team #5) I overheard someone on the phone. “Y...
