Thu, Aug 27 2015, 4:44 PM
After two days of relatively brutal selling, bond markets finally opted for much less brutal selling. In fact, 10yr yields were in positive territo...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 11:47 AM
Bigger-picture trading themes are still driving the bond market movement this week. Namely, bonds had been eager to consolidate more than a month of ...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 9:01 AM
There was virtually no
movement last week in the various indices measuring mortgage application
volume. The Mortgage Bankers Association's
(MBA's)...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 7:33 AM
Recent volatility isn't just the product of illiquid summertime trading against the backdrop of surprising announcements from global central banks. M...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 5:00 PM
Longer duration bonds got hit hard today. Case in point, 30yr bonds are up nearly 13bps while 5's are only up 6bps. The better performances in the...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates continued slightly higher today , though they appeared to have second thoughts about that at first. In fact, several lenders made m...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 3:03 PM
Wildfires
in the west have already burned more than 7 million acres . (To put
things in context, the entire state of California has about 101 mil...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 2:48 PM
The topline news while accurate is also growing monotonous : housing market continues to improve. Freddie Mac added another chapter to the seemingl...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 12:38 PM
Per loan profits increased
in the second quarter the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said today, aided
by purchase volume and loan size. MBA's
...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 11:45 AM
In financial markets, a flight-to-safety generally refers to investors moving out of riskier assets (like stocks, and certain commodities) and into sa...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 11:25 AM
While the disappointing new home sales reported last month for
June were revised even lower today July sales redeemed at least some of the
loss. Th...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 11:15 AM
Two
major indicators of home price trends released today showed continued
appreciation although larger gains were reported by the S&P/Case-Shiller
...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 7:32 AM
Given our focus on trends in mortgage rates, we often discuss lenders' intraday reprices. At the moment, however, there is an entirely different kin...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 5:55 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today as global markets managed to avoid the same sort of panicked volatility seen yesterday. The month-long trend to...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 5:55 PM
Bond markets finally did what they've wanted to do for several sessions now: square up some of the trading positions from the recent rally. That ral...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 2:52 PM
There is nothing like some bond market volatility to drive up hedge costs and push down secondary marketing results, right?
Capital markets depart...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 11:45 AM
Black Knight Financial Services said on Monday that as of the end of June
home prices nationally had returned to within 5.8 percent of their peak ex...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 11:40 AM
You know how that Monday morning alarm clock can be the most- well... 'alarming' of the week? It's not that different for the opening bells of variou...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 11:02 AM
"In
the physical sciences, knowledge is cumulative. In the financial
markets, it is cyclical." I was reminded of this by Brent Nyitray, CFA
and ...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 7:33 AM
Global financial markets are in something of a freefall at the moment. It's not like a pure freefall, but more like one of those wing suit things fro...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 5:37 PM
Mortgage rates did manage to move lower again today. And that move does bring them to the best levels in more than 3 months. But apart from that...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 5:35 PM
It'll be hard to miss today's news as it related to equities markets. Even the non-financial news will be talking about today's 588 point drop in the...
Mon, Aug 24 2015, 3:41 PM
Fannie
Mae's economic team said on Monday that the economic outlook for the second
half of 2015 is less upbeat than anticipated.
Second quarter ...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 12:21 PM
The rest of the global marketplace is harshing the mellow of US bond markets. Treasuries and MBS are wondering what all the fuss is about , having h...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 10:58 AM
The eyes of Texas are upon the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau - and not in a kindly way. Two
different actions out of Texas are challenging ...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 10:47 AM
Black Knight Financial Services released its "First Look" at
its July loan level performance data which continues to show a decline in most
measures...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 9:37 AM
What does the CFPB think of residential lenders? One indication might be the videos of borrower horror stories
posted on its website. I, for one, ...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 7:33 AM
The "Death Cross" will be back in the news soon if stocks have many more days like yesterday (that's when the 50-day moving average falls below the ...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 5:12 PM
Mortgage rates moved moderately lower yet again. This extends a winning streak that began on July 14th, making it the longest positive trend in 2...
Fri, Aug 21 2015, 5:12 PM
About 10 days into July's bond market rally, I posed the question: What if 2015 doesn't turn out to be the big bounce ? It started out with the fo...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 11:00 AM
While first-time buyers fell back,
existing home sales scored their third consecutive monthly gain in July. The National Association of Realtors® (N...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 9:03 AM
I
continue to hear about the overkill in paperwork as lenders attempt to
cover their collective "assets" against potential liabilities. But that
...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 7:33 AM
As we discussed in yesterday's close , The general message received from the FOMC Minutes is that the Fed is far more dependent on incoming data ...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 7:01 PM
Mortgage rates continued lower today, bringing most lenders to their best levels in more than 3 months. The average conventional 30yr fixed rate ...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 7:01 PM
It was a classic risk-off trade today, albeit with a certain level of exhaustion on the part of US bond markets. "Risk-off" means what it says: inv...
Thu, Aug 20 2015, 1:21 PM
By the time yesterday's FOMC Minutes were out, European and Asian markets were already closed. As such, their overnight reaction was not too surprisi...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 12:59 PM
There have been some pretty decent swings in prices/yields this morning if we're basing our notions of volatility on more recent ranges. For instance...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 9:10 AM
Yesterday
the commentary noted how jumbo lending was alive and well, at least for
depository banks. Zillow recently analyzed what areas would be m...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 8:46 AM
What little life there was in
mortgage volume last week came from refinancing. That wasn't saying much. The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) ...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 7:58 PM
Ellie Mae said this
week that the closing rate for purchase mortgages reached 70.7 percent in July
up from 69.0 in June. This is the
highest r...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 7:40 PM
Mortgage rates dropped today --largely in response to the release of the Minutes from the most recent Fed meeting. The Minutes don't convey any po...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 7:37 PM
I'm not going to launch into a detailed assessment of every passage in today's FOMC Minutes. Instead, I'm going to talk about how the Fed has been ma...
Wed, Aug 19 2015, 7:33 AM
FOMC Minutes today! Time to find out if the Fed even matters or if markets have just been consolidating for their own reasons. Granted, the Fed al...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 12:25 PM
Much like yesterday, today's economic data was far enough from consensus to move markets. Unlike yesterday, the movement was in an unfriendly direc...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 10:53 AM
The level of cash sales remains high in
several states, mostly those also still experiencing a high level of
foreclosures . CoreLogic said on Tues...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 10:48 AM
Permits for residential construction fell sharply in July,
down 16.3 percent from June while remaining 7.5 percent above the level of one year
earl...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 10:34 AM
Under
the "fun with numbers" category, several readers wrote in yesterday
regarding the CFPB's semi-annual numbers: "The report noted that during ...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 7:33 AM
It's a very interesting time for interest rates in the US. Once again, what had been broad consensus on the long-term direction of rates is turning o...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 5:34 PM
Mortgage rates moved back up today, but continue holding well-inside last week's range. "Movement" is a relative term these days considering it's...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 5:34 PM
The fun thing about FOMC Minutes releases is that we can never be sure if they're going to cause drama for rates until we see how markets react. Whet...
