Thu, Sep 3 2020, 4:58 PM
Lock vs Float Considerations Ahead of NFP and Holiday Weekend
Bonds did well at face value today, but there ...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 3:41 PM
Mortgage rates have improved nicely over the past week. While a lot of this improvement is due to the delay of the new refinance fee announced earlier...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 10:54 AM
“It was the third of September, that day I’ll always remember , yes I will… Wherever he laid his hat was his home… And when he died, all he left us wa...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 9:34 AM
The premise for today is remarkably simple. In fact, it really doesn't need many words by the time you see the first chart. After Powell and the F...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 3:57 PM
Mortgage rates have improved noticeably in the past few business days, largely due to the delay of a new fee announced earlier this month. Ironically,...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 3:40 PM
Bonds Confirm The Breakout, But There Are 2 Ways to Play It
Today offers firm confirmation of the range brea...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 10:21 AM
I don’t know whether my Nolan Ryan rookie card, fortuitously spared from my bike spokes decades ago, is worth $500 or the 10 cents I spent for the pac...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 9:20 AM
If you're like me, your initial impression of the financial market is that it's "thing" with a mind of its own-- always on , always moving, with thous...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 8:19 AM
Mortgage applications, both for home purchase and refinancing, declined for the third straight time during the week ended August 28. The Mortgage Bank...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:22 PM
For most lenders, mortgage rates improved again today, adding to the 3-week lows achieved yesterday. We normally view mortgage rate movement primarily...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:21 PM
Construction spending as a whole was essentially flat in July, but residential spending showed significant growth. The U.S. Census Bureau reported tha...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:05 PM
New Month, New Trend?
We often see a clear bias toward strength or weakness during any given month in the bo...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 12:10 PM
It has been rumored since the first wave of the coronavirus struck in some of the densely populated urban centers, especially in New York and New Jers...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 12:03 PM
Home prices grew in July by the fastest rate in nearly two years, a 5.5 percent annual gain. According to CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI), the mont...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 11:05 AM
There’s a fine joke about bowling balls and tennis balls and golf balls which I won’t repeat here, but let’s go down the scale of “numerical magnitude...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 9:06 AM
While it's definitely not a hard and fast rule, we often see a clear bias toward strength or weakness during any given month in the bond market. July...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 3:47 PM
Mortgage rates improved nicely today with the average lender more convincingly back under the 3.0% threshold for conventional 30yr fixed scenarios. In...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 3:44 PM
Bonds Making Case For Friendly Technical Bounce
Last Friday, we were already eyeing the technical ceiling at...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 1:26 PM
A recent posting on the Urban Institute's (UI's) Urban Wire blog touched on six facts about the mortgage forbearance option mandated by the CARES Act ...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 10:10 AM
No one owns a crystal ball. It seems that the best LOs and CEOs keep up on the news and trends but focus on helping borrowers one at a time, regardles...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 9:28 AM
Just like early June, we're once again forced to consider that several weeks of upward movement in yields means the lows are behind us for now. Just ...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 8:20 AM
Any decline in the number of mortgages in forbearance appears to have, at least temporarily, reached a plateau. For the second straight week Black Kni...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 4:55 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move much today, and the direction of that movement depends greatly on how any given lender reacted to the week's big news from ...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 4:45 PM
Nice Recovery Today, But Is It a Trap?
If the Fed is doubling down on its inflation goals, it makes sense fo...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 11:13 AM
Both government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have announced that their nationwide suspension of single-family foreclosures and evictions has been exte...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 10:37 AM
I remember when I would travel to exotic places like London, England, Lima, Peru, or Biloxi, Mississippi. From Southern California, thank you to Carey...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 10:06 AM
Yesterday was "interesting," to say the least. The Fed surprised markets with another unscheduled policy update and bonds traded accordingly. The su...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 3:46 PM
Let's keep this short and simple. There are some major misconceptions out there today and for many of you, it's very important to address them. What a...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 3:42 PM
Has Everything Changed After Powell Speech?
Powell's speech was the only Fed communication on the calendar t...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 10:34 AM
While Louisiana is focused on Hurricane Laura, 2,200 miles away California is focused on its wildfires… and regulations. Remember that about 25 percen...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 10:17 AM
July marked the third consecutive outsized increase in the Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) produced by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) It ...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 8:51 AM
If you don't want to read to the end to get the answer posed in the headline, here is a spoiler:
Yes, a new framework is both good and bad for bonds...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 8:16 AM
While the Gulf Coast escaped the threat of two simultaneous hurricane hits, the remaining storm, Hurricane Laura, looks like an historically dangerous...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 8:07 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 20.0 percent in July compared to a 14.2 percent ga...
Wed, Aug 26 2020, 4:21 PM
LLPA Impact vs Powell Speech. Time to Lock?
Much has been made (by news media... not bond market participan...
Wed, Aug 26 2020, 4:05 PM
With several major developments and interesting milestones in the mortgage world, I'm seeing a lot more confusion than normal. So let's clear it up wi...
Wed, Aug 26 2020, 9:58 AM
There's a global pandemic. On the one hand, it seems to be improving. On the other, it's responsible for a potentially permanent shift in the US lab...
Wed, Aug 26 2020, 8:13 AM
Mortgage applications volume fell for the second time during the week ended August 21, declining 6.5 percent from the previous week according to the M...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 4:28 PM
Two weeks ago, Fannie and Freddie announced a new guaranty fee (aka "g-fee") for virtually all refinances. To say this has been a hot topic for the mo...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 4:21 PM
New Curveball as LLPA Just Got Delayed Until Dec 1
There are two huddle videos today. The newest and most r...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 12:02 PM
New home sales were expected to dip slightly in July after posting 13.8 percent growth in June and setting a 13-year high. Instead, the June sales wer...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 11:55 AM
Both the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) Housing Price Index (HPI) and the several S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indices showed price gains acr...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 10:08 AM
Any conversation about momentum, victory, or defeat in the bond market must be prefaced with the acknowledgment that we're dealing with what would his...
Tue, Aug 25 2020, 9:17 AM
2019: Stay away from negative people. 2020: Stay away from positive people. Like it or not, depending on how “old school” you are, companies in recent...
Mon, Aug 24 2020, 3:49 PM
More Defensive But Not Without Hope
2 weeks ago, a heavy slate of supply contributed to small-scale panic in...
Mon, Aug 24 2020, 10:21 AM
Last week did a nice job of confirming a ceiling in Treasury yields after the previous week saw rates move sharply higher. At the same time the S&P...
Mon, Aug 24 2020, 9:21 AM
Winter is coming. I don’t need a new coat to walk from my bedroom through the kitchen and into the dining room to work on this commentary. Who is buyi...
Fri, Aug 21 2020, 5:18 PM
Several new reports confirm the housing market is soaring right now, but the headlines don't tell the whole story. On Friday, the National Association...
Fri, Aug 21 2020, 5:17 PM
A Week of Reassurance For The Bond Market
Last week saw the first major break higher after a calm, sustained...
Fri, Aug 21 2020, 12:08 PM
Like the report from Black Knight earlier today, the second quarter National Delinquency Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows the effect...
