Mon, Jul 19 2021, 11:25 AM
“My password is weak? Well, so is my memory, so cut me some slack and let me keep it!” What isn’t weak is the bond market, and rates continue to fall....
Mon, Jul 19 2021, 9:13 AM
The week is off to a very strong start as heavy selling in stocks coincided with a flight to safety in bonds during the overnight session. Treasuries...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 5:09 PM
Quiet Bond Market Leaves Focus on Demise of Adverse Market Fee
Seemingly out of the blue, the much-maligned ...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 2:19 PM
It is nice to end the week with good news, so here it is: The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) just announced it is eliminating the Adverse Marke...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 12:48 PM
The rapid run up in house prices may be starting to exhaust potential homebuyers according to the quarterly forecast from Freddie Mac's Economic and H...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 12:45 PM
A set of special questions on a Q1 National Housing Survey asked consumers, who were also recent homebuyers, about their experiences obtaining a mortg...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 11:22 AM
I am sure that there are people who read this commentary who firmly believe that the earth’s climate is not changing, and believe that historical grap...
Fri, Jul 16 2021, 9:49 AM
As bonds have recovered from the high yields seen in March, the tendency has been for rally weeks to end with a bit of defensiveness on Fridays. This...
Thu, Jul 15 2021, 3:06 PM
Bonds Keep Running The Table Without Much Motivation
The absence of overt, discrete motivation is one of the...
Thu, Jul 15 2021, 2:45 PM
Mortgage rates fell again today as the bond market continues to enjoy surprisingly strong levels over the past 2 weeks. That strength was not always a...
Thu, Jul 15 2021, 11:20 AM
Ask any manager. It was much more fun to announce, “We’re hiring!” than it is to mutter, “We’re laying off.” Currently there are plenty of rumors abou...
Thu, Jul 15 2021, 10:34 AM
After Wednesday's respectable rally, we may as well give up the search for too much discrete causality in the bond market. While we can definitely ob...
Wed, Jul 14 2021, 4:24 PM
Bonds Recover as Friendly Powell Trumps Inflation Data (sort of...)
Producer prices surged in this morning's...
Wed, Jul 14 2021, 3:02 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher yesterday after a poorly-received 30yr bond auction ( read more... ). The bond market began to heal in the overnight tradi...
Wed, Jul 14 2021, 11:37 AM
Don’t think technology controls you? How about this news that Apple’s weather app will never show a temperature of 69 degrees ? Good mortgage loan ori...
Wed, Jul 14 2021, 10:03 AM
The bond market doesn't tend to care about wholesale inflation (PPI) relative to the mainstream indices (CPI, PCE), but a number as high as 5.6% might...
Wed, Jul 14 2021, 8:44 AM
Mortgage application volume during the week ended July 9 featured the largest weekly increase since the first full week of 2021. The Mortgage Bankers ...
Tue, Jul 13 2021, 4:08 PM
Mortgage rates are coming off a solid performance last week after having moved to the lowest levels in 5 months by Thursday afternoon. This week is sh...
Tue, Jul 13 2021, 3:43 PM
How Does Today's Big Sell-Off Affect The Bigger Picture?
Bonds sold off somewhat aggressively this afternoon...
Tue, Jul 13 2021, 11:48 AM
The share of mortgages originated for home purchases hit its highest level since February of 2020 in May. ICE Mortgage Technology's Origination Insigh...
Tue, Jul 13 2021, 11:19 AM
When one thinks of a Constitutional Amendment, many think of the 2nd amendment (right to bear arms, 1789), 13th (end of slavery, 1865), or the 16th (c...
Tue, Jul 13 2021, 9:16 AM
We came into today expecting some asymmetric risk in favor of the bond market due to the recent tendency to take inflation numbers in stride. In simp...
Mon, Jul 12 2021, 3:56 PM
Still on a Fence as Bonds Work Through Early-Week Risks
We closed out last week on a fence about the short t...
Mon, Jul 12 2021, 11:41 AM
There was, as expected, a huge improvement in the number of forbearance plans during the week ended July 6. Black Knight reports that the number of ho...
Mon, Jul 12 2021, 11:38 AM
I head to San Diego today for the CAMP event as the industry continues to change back to in-person events. There is always change. (How’s that for an ...
Mon, Jul 12 2021, 9:18 AM
Last week ended on a bittersweet note as a surprisingly strong rally was met with big push-back on Friday. The jury was out as to whether we were wit...
Fri, Jul 9 2021, 2:23 PM
Bigger Picture Bounce or Just Another Pre-Weekend Pause
Bonds were moderately to sharply weaker overnight an...
Fri, Jul 9 2021, 1:37 PM
Even though rates rebounded to slightly higher levels on Friday, the week generally brought pleasant surprises as the mortgage market returned to leve...
Fri, Jul 9 2021, 10:42 AM
Someone once said, “A loss is not a failure until you make an excuse.” You can apply that to politics or to sports. Or to business. No company wants t...
Fri, Jul 9 2021, 9:17 AM
Big changes in the economic landscape bring big opportunities to consider whether bonds are priced where they should be. The entire spring and summer...
Thu, Jul 8 2021, 4:20 PM
Impressive Move to Longer-Term Lows. What's Next?
The centerpiece of today's global trading session was an ...
Thu, Jul 8 2021, 2:58 PM
With yesterday's mortgage rates already near longer-term lows, all it took was a modest improvement for today's rates to officially hit their best lev...
Thu, Jul 8 2021, 11:38 AM
Fannie Mae said "Consumers are increasingly adamant that it's a good time to sell, bad time to buy a home" as it released its June Home Purchase Senti...
Thu, Jul 8 2021, 11:34 AM
I head to Salt Lake City today, and on the way to the airport thought to myself, with all the technological and scientific advances being made, the fo...
Thu, Jul 8 2021, 8:59 AM
A more and more vocal contingent of traders and analysts began calling for "1.25% before 1.75%" over the past 2 months and they were rewarded overnigh...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 4:14 PM
We recently summarized a report from the Urban Institute (UI) about the apparent reluctance of sellers to entertain offers from prospective buyers int...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 4:04 PM
Traders Shrug Off Fed Minutes to Keep buying Bonds
Hindsight is 20/20 and it now seems clear that traders we...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 3:04 PM
Mortgage rates have fallen fairly consistently over the past 2.5 weeks with the past 2 days seeing some of the better improvements. There haven't been...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 11:52 AM
Sorry the commentary was a little late today. I was on the phone dealing with my car’s extended warranty. Per the personalized recording, they’ve been...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 9:38 AM
Whether it's an imperfect catch-all term like "tradeflows," or a similarly imprecise reference to the "unseen hand," bonds often find motivation from ...
Wed, Jul 7 2021, 8:08 AM
The week preceding the Independence Day holiday saw a further decline in mortgage applications for both home purchases and refinancing. The Mortgage B...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 4:09 PM
CoreLogic report for May is yet another reporting home prices are still moving higher. May's year-over-year appreciation of 15.4 percent was the highe...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 4:07 PM
The Urban Institute (UI) says it appears that the current sellers' market is having a negative impact on government backed loans and the borrowers who...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 4:04 PM
The past week saw a moderate drop in the number of loans in forbearance, but Black Knight, in its report for the week ended June 29, said the upcoming...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 4:00 PM
Strong Start to a Slow Week
Bonds rallied today, both before and after the weak ISM Non-Manufacturing data. ...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 11:08 AM
Dang it is becoming more and more expensive to follow all the rules and regulations to originate residential loans. These costs, of course, are borne ...
Tue, Jul 6 2021, 9:36 AM
2021 began with heavy selling pressure in bonds following the Georgia senate election (which gave full control of congress and the White House to one ...
Fri, Jul 2 2021, 3:34 PM
What To Make of The Post-NFP Rally
Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) beat forecasts (850k vs 700k), which is normally s...
Fri, Jul 2 2021, 11:27 AM
I realize that this is a commentary about lending, but it is good for MLOs to be cognizant of what their real estate agent client’s clients want… In a...
Fri, Jul 2 2021, 9:03 AM
While the headline for nonfarm payrolls (850k vs 700k f'cast) seems like cause for concern at first glance, the bond market is digesting it well so fa...
