Tue, Feb 17 2015, 7:32 AM
The annoying sideways grind in bond markets will continue until we see whether or not Greece ends up leaving the EU. The EU doesn't want that and nei...
Tue, Feb 17 2015, 5:41 PM
This recap will largely be a reiteration of content from the Mid-Day article as there have been no material changes in fundamentals since then. In ge...
Tue, Feb 17 2015, 4:02 PM
Mortgage rates got hit hard today , rising at the fastest day-over-day pace since November 8th 2013. As of today, this also makes February th...
Tue, Feb 17 2015, 1:45 PM
On days like today, a majority of my time is devoted to staying on top of alerts and analysis for MBS Live . As such, this will be one of the few ...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 10:58 AM
Friday the 13 th comes three times this year, and this is one of them.
I
can think of three more companies that won't be sending chocolate to
...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 7:32 AM
High-momentum trends can pause, reverse, or fizzle . More often than not, the early stages of all three of those options look exactly the same. It ...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 4:45 PM
Current regulatory policy is not addressing the primary
cause of foreclosures . CoreLogic's deputy
chief economists Sam Khater says, in an article...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 4:38 PM
Three mortgage lenders are facing civil action for false and misleading
advertising. The three were identified
in a joint Consumer Financial Prote...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 4:36 PM
As expected/feared, the path of least resistance for bond markets has been that of weakness heading into the long weekend with big news waiting on the...
Fri, Feb 13 2015, 3:35 PM
Mortgage rates may have been feeling the love yesterday, but that now seems to have been a coincidental blip in the longer-term trend. Rates act...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 12:51 PM
The overnight session was scary for bond markets as 10yr yields rose to test the 2.04 technical level. Interestingly enough, trading went dead flat...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 10:56 AM
While all-cash sales continue to decline as a percentage of
all home sales, in several states they still account for more than half of all
residen...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 10:54 AM
As the housing industry continues to recover we see
occasional troublesome spikes in one statistic or another. RealtyTrac reported a couple of such ...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 10:44 AM
Applications for mortgages to purchase newly construction
homes increased by 29 percent in January.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said t...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 10:11 AM
A
Pew survey finds the typical middle class family could only replace 21
days of income with readily accessible funds. What is even scarier
perh...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 7:32 AM
The news that keeps coming out of Europe is just too good not to have been scripted by some secret society of brilliant comedians. The dialogue betwe...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 5:03 PM
Bond markets were at their best levels since Monday heading into today's 1pm 30yr Bond auction (MBS prices don't reflect that only because of the roll...
Thu, Feb 12 2015, 5:02 PM
Mortgage rates were feeling left out of the cheesy, obligatory, early February references to certain love-themed holidays. Markets hadn't show...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 12:34 PM
Today has turned out to be a total dud so far in terms of actionable information for traders. Although there's still technically time, we've seen abs...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 10:27 AM
There
are plenty of states with plenty of mountains. In fact, while many say
it is "as flat as a pancake" in Kansas, you might be interested to kn...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 8:36 AM
The on and off refinancing boomlet that has sporadically driven mortgage
application volume since the first of the year went missing again during t...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 7:32 AM
Europe is a tangled mess of politics and bureaucracy that puts anything else to shame. Why do I say this? First, because it's true. Second, and mor...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 6:03 PM
Julian Castro told the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday
that the Federal Housing Administrations (FHA) historically high premiums limi...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 5:33 PM
Mortgage rates are in the midst of a substantial losing streak . Today's outright losses weren't that bad in and of themselves, but they have...
Wed, Feb 11 2015, 5:29 PM
The last few highlighted comments at the bottom of this page tell the story of the late-day headlines. The first one caught markets' attention:
RT...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 12:22 PM
If I didn't know any better (and I might not), I'd guess that someone from Greece is calling up news organizations and pretending to be an EU official...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 10:49 AM
Foreclosures during the 12 months ended on December 31 were
the lowest recorded in the U.S. over that time period since November 2007
CoreLogic sa...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 10:32 AM
Tonight
I head to Houston for a couple days, and the city certainly has its
share of coffee houses. What if purchasing your next house near a
St...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 7:37 AM
Remember 2008 though the middle of 2011, or the 2nd half of 2013? Me neither, but I went back and read a few of my old posts and think I have a prett...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 5:30 PM
Bond markets got the 3yr Treasury auction out of the way today. While it was noticeably positive for Treasuries, it was the least potent of the 3 in ...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 4:28 PM
Mortgage rates remain under significant pressure , having now moved higher almost every day in February. So far, this is the worst month for rate...
Tue, Feb 10 2015, 3:36 PM
In a paper on the issue, the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) says that "Many older consumers and their
families are confused and frustr...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 12:56 PM
The most interesting news overnight was the reaffirmation from Greek leaders that the country is done with austerity, no matter the cost. At this poi...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 10:59 AM
Next Monday is a Federal Holiday. When I was a kid we had
both Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays off, and it serves as a
reminder that we got g...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 7:34 AM
In many ways, the current tussle between Greece and its creditors is reminiscent of past iterations. There's some bluffing, posturing, lying, feigned...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 7:16 PM
After Friday's aggressive sell-off, bond markets managed only a modest bounce back before acquiescing to even weaker levels by the close. There wer...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 5:16 PM
Mortgage rates , fresh off a rather ugly Friday last week, continued to struggle today. The morning hours were mostly OK. Some lenders were in...
Mon, Feb 9 2015, 3:08 PM
Fannie Mae said today that its monthly National Housing
Survey (NHS) portrayed increasing optimism as both employment and overall
economic figures...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 11:00 AM
"Rob, do you know where I can find a list of
the largest credit unions?" Yes I do: credit union ranking .
Credit unions in the United States serv...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 7:05 AM
Oh man... I'm about to say some crazy stuff . If I could go back in time one year and tell myself "hey, past self, in a year you're going to write a...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 6:13 PM
In a real sense, today's bond market weakness was nothing more than a continuation of February's existing trend on steroids. Multiple asset classes h...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 4:56 PM
Mortgage rates shot higher at their fastest pace in nearly a year today following this morning's employment data. This also leaves rates at thei...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 2:16 PM
The National Association of Home Builders ( NAHB ) said today
that nationwide metropolitan area markets are improving at a constant pace and are
n...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 2:07 PM
This morning's MUCH -stronger than expected NFP hit bond markets while they were already on the back foot in terms of the February trend. It followe...
Fri, Feb 6 2015, 2:02 PM
As
might be expected, as the number of foreclosures has dwindled , so has the number
of so-called zombies . However RealtyTrac
said on Friday th...
Thu, Feb 5 2015, 10:55 AM
In
the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to visit Florida, Oregon,
Colorado, Southern California (its own state), Arizona, Texas, and
Fl...
Thu, Feb 5 2015, 7:32 AM
If you're just getting caught up, here's the long and the short of yesterday's news from the ECB in relation to Greece-inspired Euro-drama.
The re...
Thu, Feb 5 2015, 5:57 PM
Last night, Treasuries attempted to play it safe ahead of the European session by rallying sharply on news they figured would have a big positive effe...
Thu, Feb 5 2015, 4:57 PM
Mortgage rates held their ground today even as trading levels in bond markets suggested a move higher. This has to do with the heads-up I offere...
Thu, Feb 5 2015, 2:43 PM
New initiatives aimed at increasing access to credit and making it more
affordable began to pay off in January according to Mike Fratantoni, the
Mor...
