Thu, Dec 17 2015, 4:59 PM
Mortgage rates continued modestly lower today as financial markets continue sorting out their reaction to yesterday's Fed rate hike. As a reminde...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 10:20 AM
Residential construction activity surged in November with
both residential construction permits and housing starts, permits especially,
beating anal...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 10:12 AM
The financial services sector continues to evolve, or devolve as the
case may be. Certainly the wave of mergers and acquisitions continues,
and ju...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 9:07 AM
Refinancing remained strong relative to purchase mortgage activity during
the week ended December 11 while application activity overall slipped. The...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 8:20 PM
MBS traded less than a 3/8ths point range to end down an eighth of a point (Fannie 3.5) and 10yr yields traded an 8 bp range to end LESS THAN ONE BAS...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 7:33 AM
Sometimes we approach days with big-ticket events with great anticipation only to be let down by the amount of excitement offered. Today is a bit di...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 6:40 PM
Mortgage rates moved just slightly lower today, despite the long-awaited Fed rate hike. Once again, that's LOWER mortgage rates and a HIGHER Fed ...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 2:09 PM
Naturally, this is the most changed Fed Announcement in recent memory. Strike-through indicates previous text. Underline indicates new text.
Releas...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 1:39 PM
In order to end what it considered excessive borrowing by
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) and the Federal Home Loan Banks the
Federal Reserve,...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 10:26 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said on
Tuesday that its NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) dropped one point
in December ...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 10:23 AM
Ninety-two percent of mortgaged homeowners now have positive
equity in their homes after more than a quarter-million emerged from being
underwater i...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 10:04 AM
What
is this? Fear of a bubble in commercial real estate? Apparently the Fed
is increasingly concerned about asset pricing and lending practices i...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 7:33 AM
Bond markets sold-off in a fairly big way yesterday, and for no particular reason apart from the fact that they rallied in a fairly big way on Friday....
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 5:38 PM
There's very little to report--with respect to the second half of the day--that hasn't already been covered in the quick and dirty bullet points from ...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 4:57 PM
Mortgage rates jumped again today, moving to the highest levels more than a month ahead of tomorrow's hotly anticipated Fed Announcement. Many le...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 1:34 PM
Here is the quickest and dirtiest way to look at bond movements over the past few days, in bullet points:
This month's ECB shocker (12/3) defle...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 9:40 AM
"The
mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher
demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." So said William Arthur War...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 7:33 AM
Roughly 3 months after the Fed's last stellar opportunity to enact its long-anticipated rate hike, we come to meeting that is all but certain to host ...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 5:44 PM
It's the latest fad: junk bonds! You might not even know what that is, and you certainly don't need to. A junk bond is another term for a "high yi...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 5:10 PM
Mortgage rates moved quickly higher today, more than erasing Friday's strong performance. If fact, most lenders are at their highest levels in mo...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 3:19 PM
Could mortgage fraud be coming back? According to Bret Fortenberry, writing in
CoreLogic's Insights blog, there are
indications the incidence is ...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 3:08 PM
The Office of Comptroller of the
Currency (OCC) reported on Monday that mortgage performance continued to
improve during the third quarter. Both
r...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 2:46 PM
With the much-anticipated Fed rate hike only 2 days away, volatility continues to build in financial markets. It's not that investors disagree abou...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 10:56 AM
Women who own small businesses in the United
States are overall more satisfied than their male counterparts with
their banking experience, accordi...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 7:32 AM
If this week's economic data and events were auditioning for some reality show, market participants would be like the judges. This would be like one ...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 6:49 PM
Over the next three weeks we will probably be subjected to more housing
forecasts for 2016 than ads for Chia Pets.
Here is the version provided b...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 6:46 PM
If you didn't catch the mid-day commentary , it has a good recap of most of the day's activity. If you're not into links, here are the important par...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 6:18 PM
Mortgage rates recovered yesterday's losses in many cases, and moved even lower in many other cases. The mortgage sector was one of the tamer per...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 1:58 PM
Life isn't always fair for MBS. Sure, there was QE3 which specifically targeted MBS over Treasuries, leaving the latter out in the cold on a relative...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:56 AM
Tis the season could be the
theme for the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) estimate of November new
home sales . According to data acquired
...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:55 AM
Someone
is always upset when they are left off of some list, but Owners.com, a
national brokerage, has published the top 25 metro areas by home pr...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 9:09 AM
My apologies for the commentary coming out later than normal a few times this week. I've been doing battle with water here in the Pacific Northwest, ...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 5:46 PM
At 9am, domestic bond markets were just barely clawing their way into positive territory after an uneventful overnight trading session. That made f...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 5:21 PM
Mortgage rates moved moderately higher today, bringing them to the worst levels in exactly one week. That said, the movement over that time has b...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 1:44 PM
There continues to be very little to discuss in terms of interesting, relevant market developments this week. Chalk this up to the theme we've discus...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 9:20 AM
Among other debt instruments the U.S. Treasury issues
(auctions/sells) T-Bills (maturing in one year or less), T-Notes (2-10
year maturities), and...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 9:07 AM
Mortgage application volume was higher across the board during the week
ended December 4 as activity rebounded from the essentially three-day work ...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 9:06 AM
Are you more of a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person? There's something for everyone hiding in yesterday's ostensibly boring bond mark...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 5:21 PM
Today's bond market movements were a bit more pronounced than yesterday's, but similar in some regards. The first similarly was the inconsequential...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 4:41 PM
Mortgage rates held steady for a second straight day, but only when considering the end-of-day rate sheets. The morning hours were similar on eac...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 4:34 PM
CoreLogic's October National Foreclosure Report puts the foreclosure
inventory, the number of residential properties in process of foreclosure that
...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 1:23 PM
Bond markets began the domestic session in slightly weaker territory after an overnight session that was almost completely uneventful. The two key t...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 10:43 AM
"I
remember the words to every song from the 1970s, but I forgot why I
walked into this room..." Memory is a funny thing. But remember when it
w...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 7:32 AM
"Distance makes the heart grow fonder," as they say. To some extent, it's the same for bonds markets and trading inspiration: the lower the inspirati...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 7:11 PM
Bond markets had an exceedingly acceptable day. MBS and and Treasuries were generally in stronger territory by the end of the day, but by too small a...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 6:48 PM
Per-loan profitability fell in the third quarter of 2015 the
Mortgage Bankers Association. (MBA) said today, but remained substantially
above ...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 6:39 PM
Credit availability decreased in November for the first time since early summer. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Mortgage Credit Avai...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 5:17 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today after spending the past 2 business days recovering from the worst day in more than 2 years last Thursday. As we ...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 2:12 PM
The overnight session was both informative and positive for bond markets. The informative part was the technical floor seen in 10yr yields (2.20) a...
Mon, Dec 7 2015, 10:53 AM
The government sponsored enterprises'' (GSE's)
introduction of 97 percent loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages, implemented by Fannie
Mae' in late 2014 and...
