Fri, Aug 22 2014, 7:31 AM
Yellen delivers the keynote speech at Jackson Hole today. What does that even mean? I remember being somewhat perplexed by the unclear significance ...
Fri, Aug 22 2014, 5:05 PM
With limited interruptions, bond markets have been sleepwalking since most of the summer. While that has afforded them some measure of forward prog...
Fri, Aug 22 2014, 3:22 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for a second straight day following a much-anticipated speech from Federal Reserve Chair Yellen in Jackson Hole. Whil...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:46 AM
Existing home sales in July hit their
best pace so far this year the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said
today, reflecting a 2.4 percent in...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:44 AM
Total refinances through completed
through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the GSEs) in the second quarter topped
344,000. The Federal Housing Finance
...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:31 AM
It seems hard to imagine, but
CoreLogic said on Wednesday that once-upon-a time, before the housing crisis,
the sale of distressed homes made up on...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:28 AM
A credit report is enough to completely steal a person's identity . It is? Does it take a few weeks? No - it takes 3 minutes .
And we wonder why...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 11:18 AM
It's been a pleasantly resilient day for MBS and Treasuries so far. After a completely uneventful overnight session, both opened just slightly weak...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 7:42 AM
Today's calendar of scheduled events is the busiest of the week with Jobless Claims at 8:30am followed by Philly Fed and Existing Home Sales at 10am. ...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 4:29 PM
One week ago tomorrow, Treasuries fell to their lowest yields in over a year after Ukraine said it blew up part of a Russian convoy. Until yesterday ...
Thu, Aug 21 2014, 3:46 PM
Mortgage rates ended a 3-day losing streak , moving modestly lower today. This wasn't the case in the morning, but several lenders released positiv...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 12:25 PM
MBS are outperforming Treasuries today and have been flirting with positive territory heading into the noon hour. Treasuries are still about 1bp hi...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 10:19 AM
The CFPB released a bulletin outlining expectations for mortgage servicers that transfer loans;
bulletin includes information on how mortgage se...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 8:51 AM
As interest rates pulled back last week, refinancing drove mortgage
application activity slightly higher . The
Mortgage Bankers Association said t...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 7:28 AM
Bond markets have endured 2 days of losses so far this week. Both days have also been prime examples of illiquid summertime trading. This simply mea...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 5:19 PM
Bond markets have a secret. Or rather, we have to pretend like it's a secret in order to turn something very boring into something remotely interesti...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 4:36 PM
Mortgage rates were higher for a third straight day as financial markets continue a measured correction from last Friday's volatility. At that tim...
Wed, Aug 20 2014, 2:35 PM
Realtors responding to a recent survey
by the California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) reported that investors and
investor sales are a shrinki...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 12:33 PM
Relative to yesterday's exceptionally linear trading, prices have been much more volatile today. The overnight session was constructive for global ...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 10:45 AM
Two important measures of strength in
the housing and construction industries moved substantially higher in July the
U.S. Census Bureau and the De...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 10:42 AM
It
is fun to see that U.S. homebuilder confidence rose to a seven-month
high, primarily driven by lower mortgage rates and an improving jobs
mar...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 7:43 AM
It remains to be seen whether today's economic data will even matter given the incredibly light participation so far this week. In other words, today...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 4:15 PM
Everything that happened in bond markets today, happened before noon. Whether this was a factor of European markets contributing to the volatility or...
Tue, Aug 19 2014, 2:08 PM
Mortgage rates continued moving higher today after headlines suggested a chance for deescalation in Ukraine. It was the geopolitical risk in Ukrai...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 12:11 PM
As is frequently the case for Monday's during the summer, bond markets have not been very active. Trading levels have remained in a narrow range as...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 11:14 AM
Measures
of builder confidence in the new home market rose again this month. The third consecutive monthly increase in the
National Association o...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 10:59 AM
Say
what you will about Zillow (and people do), the firm does not fall
short as a driver of information. As many in the industry are preparing
t...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 7:34 AM
Drama is fueling a surprisingly strong 2014 rally in US bond markets. Most of that drama has to do with the European economy and geopolitical risks o...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 5:23 PM
After hitting the lowest levels in over 2 months on Friday, mortgage rates bounced almost all the way back to Thursday's levels. That's somewha...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 5:23 PM
The day started out inoffensively enough with MBS and Treasuries only down slightly from Friday's latest levels. Those were also incidentally the be...
Mon, Aug 18 2014, 4:21 PM
The Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau (CFPB) has increased threshold amounts for loans governed by various trigger
limits under Qualified Mortgag...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 12:22 PM
The trading day began mostly uneventfully, with bond markets working their way into positive territory by the domestic open. Economic data didn't sta...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 11:32 AM
Guess
what opened up on this date 100 years ago? No, it wasn't the first
Starbucks. The Panama Canal opened. Do you think the mortgage industry
...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 7:41 AM
There are plenty of frustrating times in financial markets where a trend is only as good as it's most recent trading day. This is the old: "the tren...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 5:13 PM
MBS got very close to their best levels of the year today, as did mortgage rates. Treasuries, on the other hand, crashed through their previous flo...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 4:39 PM
There were numerous headlines swirling mid-morning concerning military violence between Ukraine and Russia. Financial markets responded in a big wa...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 2:46 PM
Home prices "firmed" in several markets
in the second quarter and, according to the National Association of Home
Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 2:20 PM
Less than a half-year after the
Ability-to-Repay (ATR) and Qualified Mortgage (QM) rules took effect most
lenders report little impact on their busi...
Fri, Aug 15 2014, 1:34 PM
CoreLogic
recently awarded its Academic Research Council Excellence Award to a study
conducted by professors from three universities who looked at r...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 12:14 PM
Today has brought a decent dose of volatility to bond markets. Overnight trading saw Treasury yields rise somewhat abruptly during Asian hours. The ...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 10:37 AM
There was a significant uptick in
foreclosure filings in July according to RealtyTrac's U.S. Foreclosure Market
Report. The company said however ...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 10:31 AM
Applications for the purchase of newly
constructed single-family homes rose 2 percent in July. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) based
this ...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 10:30 AM
While the share of residential real
estate transactions that are all cash continues to decline they remain well
above historic levels CoreLogic said...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 9:47 AM
Here's
a story for the guys in IT. In "the old days" hotel rooms actually had
keys, and hotels didn't have computers. But now most hotels are reli...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 7:40 AM
It's fun anthropomorphize bond markets. After all, by the time we admit that even "black box" trading still results from human programming, markets a...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 5:18 PM
It's getting a bit eerie at this point. MBS have had extra calm afternoons every day this week, and haven't lost meaningful ground on any of them. O...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 4:49 PM
Mortgage rates made yet another small move lower , and this time it was enough to lay claim to the title of "lowest in over a month." This is mor...
Thu, Aug 14 2014, 3:46 PM
Wells Fargo has apparently decided that
a carrot is better than massive layoffs when the mortgage business starts to
slide. Bloomberg is report...
Wed, Aug 13 2014, 11:56 AM
Relative to the first two days of the week, today's biggest loser (in terms of bond yields) is Europe. German Bund yields rose less than Treasuries...
Wed, Aug 13 2014, 10:47 AM
"The Bureau found that Amerisave lured consumers
by advertising misleading interest rates, locked them in with costly
up-front fees, failed to h...
