Thu, Sep 18 2014, 12:39 PM
Occasionally the days after FOMC Announcements can can offer more volatility and faster-paced movement than that seen on the day of the announcement. ...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 10:59 AM
Peter
Drucker opined, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing
the right things." The Federal Reserve sure wants banks that lend mon...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 7:32 AM
With the Fed-related events out of the way, we'll finally get to see how much they mattered. Yesterday's initial market reaction--while negative--was...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 5:01 PM
Today turned out to be spooky, or at least 'uninformative' from a market-watching standpoint. Here we have an active trading day following a hotly-...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 3:49 PM
Mortgage rates only moved slightly higher today for most lenders. Some lenders were unchanged from yesterday, but on average, rates inched up to m...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 3:19 PM
The
Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
has released an audit critical of the FHFA for decision making l...
Thu, Sep 18 2014, 3:03 PM
Housing
starts 'plummeted' in August the Census Bureau said today, falling 14.4 percent
from the revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,117,00...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 12:35 PM
Bond markets were slightly stronger again overnight but in the context of the past few weeks, we're essentially flat for the past 3 days. This consol...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 11:33 AM
A four point jump in September has taken the
National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index
(HMI) to its highest re...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 11:00 AM
Want
some numbers that none of us will remember, but that are indicative of
demographic trends that won't help lending? In 2010, households headed...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 9:17 AM
The week ended September 12 saw the losses in application volume which occurred
during the previous week which was shortened by the Labor Day holiday...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 7:24 AM
Today brings the biggest set of events in weeks, perhaps months. Starting at 2pm, the FOMC (aka "the Fed") releases it's official policy statement an...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 5:30 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher at a moderate pace today after the Fed reiterated their intentions regarding the gradual tightening of monetary policy....
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 5:19 PM
As far as Fed days go, this one was pretty tame. That's especially true if we consider the amount of hype and anxiety associated with this particular...
Wed, Sep 17 2014, 2:03 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July
suggests that economic activity is expanding at a moderate pace. On
balan...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 12:18 PM
It's generally been another uneventful day in the shadow of tomorrow's FOMC events. There just hasn't been anything on the calendar or any unschedu...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 10:43 AM
How
can we move forward as an industry when we can't even agree on how to
pronounce the acronym for Truth-in-Lending? I have heard "TILA"
pronou...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 7:33 AM
What are we even supposed to do with today? Whether from the standpoint of market participant or market watcher, there's precious little to care ab...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 4:30 PM
Bond markets had their ups and downs today, but ultimately, none of it really matters in the bigger picture. Whether we look at where trading levels ...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 4:08 PM
As the U.S. economy improves and adds jobs, younger Americans-millennials-are slowly starting to move out from their parents' basements , where a rec...
Tue, Sep 16 2014, 3:12 PM
Mortgage rates experienced their first genuine improvement of the month today. The gains were nothing if not very small, but they ended an uncom...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 12:15 PM
Lack of knowledge and misinformation may be discouraging
Americans from buying a home according to a recent survey sponsored by Wells
Fargo &Company...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 12:13 PM
Treasuries began the overnight session moving to even higher yields than those seen on Friday afternoon. Just after 4:30am, German Bunds put in a str...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 9:51 AM
Lead generator Intermundo Media, LLC has agreed to pay $500,000
to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that it falsely
adverti...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 7:27 AM
As Treasury yields and mortgage rates spiraled rapidly higher over the past two weeks, 2014's steady trend toward lower rates quickly strayed into v...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 4:49 PM
Japan was out for a holiday today and US markets might as well have been. Apart from the first few minutes of the domestic session, today was one of...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates managed to hold steady today, which matches the very best performance of any other day in September. In other words, rates have e...
Mon, Sep 15 2014, 2:19 PM
Much has been made lately over the
propensity of so-called millennials, the demographic cohort which is now
between 18 and 34 years of age, to forgo...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 12:01 PM
Throughout the week, we've had our eyes on the long term downtrend in rates stretching back to the beginning of 2014. It provided some context for th...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 10:30 AM
The
Community Reinvestment Act is certainly full of policies and
procedures, and you might have a new set of them to contemplate. Using
the Fe...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 7:31 AM
I hate the terms 'overbought' and 'oversold.' At best, they cause confusion, and at worst they serve as the basis for faulty decision-making among ...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 4:35 PM
Actually, the last 2 weeks have been ugly for bond markets. It's almost as if a switch was flipped as soon as September began.
Just when ...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 3:18 PM
Mortgage rates have now endured an insulting 10 straight days without improving. While a few of those have resulted in 'unchanged' levels, most ...
Fri, Sep 12 2014, 1:33 PM
There are five key issues confronting
the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) its director told a banking audience
on Monday. The five, taken t...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 12:05 PM
After 8 days in throes of volatility and weakness, bond markets are finally catching a small break today. For now, it's no more than a half-hearted...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 10:40 AM
In preparing to write a small blurb about the Unmarried and Singles Week
that starts in 10 days, which, as best I can tell, is nowhere near
Vale...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 7:31 AM
When we talk about the 'longer term trend' these days, we're referencing the slow and steady improvements for bond markets that began in early 2014. ...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 4:26 PM
It was a bit of a cruel session for bond markets as the day started out in stronger territory only to sell off with less than 2 hours to go. After 8 ...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 3:00 PM
Mortgage rates were essentially unchanged today. Most lenders were microscopically lower in terms of closing costs, though several went the othe...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 1:43 PM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's)
measure of new home sales reflected a significant drop in the volume of applications
for mortgages to p...
Thu, Sep 11 2014, 1:42 PM
Foreclosure activity increased significantly in August according to the
U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released Thursday by RealtyTrac. The increa...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 12:41 PM
Fannie 3.5s are down 10/32nds from yesterday's latest levels. Keep in mind that today's prices reflect October coupons whereas yesterday's were based...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 10:55 AM
The
city of San Francisco has 121 square kilometers (about 47 square
miles). The Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport's area is about 70 square
kilometers, ...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 9:10 AM
Mortgage applications displayed their worst
volumes in months during the week ended September 5. That the week was shortened by the Labor Day
holid...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 7:33 AM
Yesterday's mid-day commentary did a good job of summing up the general malaise in bond markets. Revisit it HERE if you like, but here's the impo...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 5:00 PM
Whiel we could see some sort of technical bounce or a data-driven consolidation of recent trading patterns, bond markets have generally been on a tear...
Wed, Sep 10 2014, 3:37 PM
Mortgage rates continued moving higher at a fairly quick pace today. Some borrowers may now start to see rate quotes moving up an eighth of a po...
Tue, Sep 9 2014, 12:13 PM
Negative momentum has been pervasive in September so far. Even the brief rally after Friday's jobs report failed to get yields back down to Thursday'...
Tue, Sep 9 2014, 10:42 AM
First
time home buyers include more than just Millennials - see the note a
few paragraphs down. The group includes recent immigrants, newly
divo...
Tue, Sep 9 2014, 7:39 AM
September has been decidedly negative for bond markets so far, and largely without any regard for economic data and events. Given that 'month-end' ...
