Thu, Apr 14 2022, 10:34 AM
It’s Thursday. What should we talk about today? Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter? How about the jump in adjustable-rate locks as evidenced by the MBA’s fig...
Wed, Apr 13 2022, 4:47 PM
When it comes to financial markets and mortgage rates, things rarely happen in straight lines. Each time rates spiked to new multi-year highs in rece...
Wed, Apr 13 2022, 4:01 PM
How About Now (For A Ceiling in Rates) ?
Producer prices surged much higher than expected in this morning's ...
Wed, Apr 13 2022, 12:09 PM
The bond market is running out of potential market movers on this holiday-shortened week with this afternoon's 30yr bond auction and tomorrow's ECB an...
Wed, Apr 13 2022, 11:33 AM
I happen to be visiting Manhattan this week. Besides the news about the subway shooting, the overall “hum” of this place being unmistakable and I ment...
Wed, Apr 13 2022, 11:27 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported double digit increases in the interest rates of most mortgage products again last week, and refinancin...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 5:03 PM
There's no question that today was one of the few recent examples of a "good day" for most of the bond market and, consequently, mortgage rates. The ...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 4:30 PM
Nice Data-Driven Rally, But Keep Recent False Starts in Mind
Incessant trends toward higher rates bring the ...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 3:05 PM
Two full years after the COVID-19 virus upended life the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA’s) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) remains some...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 2:37 PM
While still healthy, mortgage lenders’ 2021 profits took a deep dive from the record returns recorded in 2020. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 12:11 PM
CPI (the Consumer Price Index) is arguably the most important data point for interest rates in a world where inflation is at the highest levels since ...
Tue, Apr 12 2022, 11:44 AM
I knew it was going to be a rough morning today when my alarm went off and I found my cat Myrtle staring at the computer screen watching Social D’s “D...
Mon, Apr 11 2022, 4:01 PM
The last few days of March offered some hope that 2022's massive rate spike might be slowing down. The first few days of April crushed those hopes a...
Mon, Apr 11 2022, 3:51 PM
Running Out of Ways to Say "Higher Rates"
Market watchers are at risk of major desensitization when it comes...
Mon, Apr 11 2022, 3:18 PM
Overall volumes of mortgage loan rate locks appear, as yet, largely unaffected by the recent increases in mortgage interest rates, but have definitely...
Mon, Apr 11 2022, 11:30 AM
Bonds lost ground early in the overnight session before buyers stepped in to defend the new multi-year highs in yields across the curve. Japanese inve...
Fri, Apr 8 2022, 4:20 PM
Rates Keep Playing Defense Ahead of Volatile, Holiday-Shortened Week
Wednesday's Fed Minutes might have serv...
Fri, Apr 8 2022, 11:42 AM
Hopeful consolidation... Crushing defeat... Hopeful consolidation... Crushing defeat. We've hesitated time and again to endorse too much hope for a t...
Fri, Apr 8 2022, 11:27 AM
The risk-free 2-year Treasury began 2022 yielding .73 and is now at 2.52 percent! Does your company offer 2-1 buydown loans? Do your LOs even know wha...
Thu, Apr 7 2022, 4:34 PM
Mortgage rates are based primarily on the price of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which are basically bonds that allow investors to lend money to m...
Thu, Apr 7 2022, 3:54 PM
Bad Day For The 10yr But Not For MBS
The spread between 2 and 10yr yields has widened more than 27bps in 2 d...
Thu, Apr 7 2022, 11:53 AM
Following the second shallow inversion of the 2yr vs 10yr yield curve on Tuesday, 10yr yields have been surging higher while 2s recover. The curve is...
Thu, Apr 7 2022, 10:12 AM
Today is National Beer Day (beer humor below), which made last night Beer Day’s Eve. Here at the CMLA event the talk is not about all of the craft bre...
Wed, Apr 6 2022, 4:48 PM
Mortgage rates jumped significantly higher this morning with the average conventional conforming 30yr fixed rate moving well over 5%. The most recent...
Wed, Apr 6 2022, 4:24 PM
Bonds Doing Admirable Job of Digesting Harsh New Reality
Yesterday's comments from Fed Vice Chair Brainard e...
Wed, Apr 6 2022, 2:04 PM
You can't spend too much time reading/watching the news recently without being well aware of the relatively unprecedented surge in mortgage rates seen...
Wed, Apr 6 2022, 12:17 PM
Grammar is important. What’s the difference between a kleptomaniac and a literalist? A literalist takes things literally. A kleptomaniac takes things,...
Wed, Apr 6 2022, 11:51 AM
There is a highly reliable track record of the bond market moving quickly to get in position for the Fed's expected course of action. When those expe...
Tue, Apr 5 2022, 5:07 PM
Rates have been rising rapidly in 2022 in general as the market quickly repositions for a big shift in Fed policy. The Fed sets short term rates and b...
Tue, Apr 5 2022, 4:43 PM
Market's Fear is Bigger Than The Fed's Appetite For Destruction
The Fed is on a mission to destroy demand fo...
Tue, Apr 5 2022, 12:19 PM
Sorry... I couldn't think of any "B" words for "weakest levels."
Our big project of the past week and a half has been to assess the possibility of a...
Tue, Apr 5 2022, 11:05 AM
My friend David had his id stolen and now he’s just Dav. Having anything stolen is not a laughing matter, and since we’re in the money business, lende...
Mon, Apr 4 2022, 4:01 PM
Curve Steepening Helps MBS, but Keeps Broader Indecision Intact
We're looking to the first few days of April...
Mon, Apr 4 2022, 4:00 PM
Mortgage rates are fresh off their best week since early March in terms of outright improvement. The catch is that they were at the highest levels ...
Mon, Apr 4 2022, 2:17 PM
Black Knight's latest Mortgage Monitor report was released this morning and it provided more timely insight on home price appreciation than last week'...
Mon, Apr 4 2022, 12:23 PM
“Rob, my capital markets gal eliminated our ability to lock overnight at yesterday’s rates. I think that she’s being unreasonable. Your thoughts?” No,...
Mon, Apr 4 2022, 11:38 AM
NFP Friday rarely falls on the first day of the month/quarter. The last time it happened in April was 2016, and it was wholly uneventful. The same m...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 5:26 PM
Home prices have been on a tear since late 2020 despite generally higher rates in 2021. In the past few months, rates have upped the ante by surging a...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 5:20 PM
Rate Recovery Stumbles, But Jury Still Out
As we said in the run up to today's trading session, we need to s...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 2:37 PM
Total construction spending rose in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.704 trillion, a 0.5 percent increase from January and 11.2 per...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 12:09 PM
Bonds got off to a much weaker start on Friday as "new month, new quarter" tradeflows leave sellers firmly in control. This began right out of the ga...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 11:08 AM
I think that we can all agree that in 2017 not a single interviewee got the answer correct to, “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?” Heck, pro...
Thu, Mar 31 2022, 4:56 PM
The headline "lowest rates in a week" may not be too sensational or even that informative at first glance, but in today's case, it's big news. You'd ...
Thu, Mar 31 2022, 4:34 PM
Mixed Day For Bonds, But Same Opportunities (And Risks) Remain
The day began fairly well for the bond market...
Thu, Mar 31 2022, 10:53 AM
This is the "to be or not to be" question for the bond market right now. Said differently, have we suffered sufficient slings and arrows for investor...
Wed, Mar 30 2022, 3:49 PM
Yields Bounce Back Nicely, Ending Lower For 2nd Straight Day
Back to back rally days are a rarity in March. ...
Wed, Mar 30 2022, 3:18 PM
There hasn't been much to get excited about when it comes to mortgage rates in the month of March--at least not in a positive way. Negative excitemen...
Wed, Mar 30 2022, 10:59 AM
As we edge toward Easter, which isn’t until April 17 this year, the Dallas Fed has released a report on housing prices… have they become unhinged from...
Wed, Mar 30 2022, 10:35 AM
For most of 2010 through the middle of 2013, the purchase mortgage market languished as homebuyers were reluctant to come back to the table after the ...
Wed, Mar 30 2022, 9:52 AM
Oil prices aren't everything when it comes to the bond market, but they've been an important domino a few places farther up the chain due to their imp...
