Wed, Jan 2 2013, 4:34 PM
The last-minute Fiscal Cliff deal clearly suggested that bond markets would have a tough day today , but with the nature of the deal being less than ...
Wed, Jan 2 2013, 4:08 PM
One of my favorite movies this time of year is Christmas Vacation. Being a multiple year winner of neighborhood light contests, I am inspired by the a...
Wed, Jan 2 2013, 2:48 PM
Mortgage rates moved to their highest levels since December 19th this morning after Congress passed a last-minute bill softening the blow of the F...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 11:29 AM
With Japanese markets closed, overnight trading activity was light. 10yr Treasuries began the European hours in slightly weaker Territory than Friday...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 10:48 AM
As our nation prepares to begin the new year, the U.S. Census Bureau
today projected that on Jan. 1, 2013, the total United States population
will ...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 10:11 AM
Fourteen large banks appear ready to
pony up another $10 billion to end allegations of foreclosure abuse. According to the New York Times , the s...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 9:56 AM
The Senate
has confirmed Carol Galante as head of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The confirmation will remove the term "acting"
from h...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 4:22 PM
Today's headlines generally erred on the site of optimism for some sort of stop-gap Fiscal Cliff agreement and Treasuries began taking their lumps ear...
Mon, Dec 31 2012, 1:26 PM
Mortgage rates moved moderately higher to end the year, reversing last week's trend of small improvements. In Washington, Fiscal Cliff negotiations h...
Sun, Dec 30 2012, 10:16 PM
Both chambers of Congress worked over the weekend to ensure that no Fiscal Cliff deal would accidentally get passed or announced before the last poss...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 11:38 AM
At first blush, headlines just before 11am indicating that the President
would offer up a scaled-back Fiscal Cliff deal today, seemed to be a
simp...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 10:35 AM
Default rates for first mortgage loans
increased in both October and November according to the S&P Dow Jones
Indices and Experian. The increases d...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 10:29 AM
The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index
reached the highest level seen in two and a half years in November after
po...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 10:17 AM
"We're lost, but we're making good time." The CFPB does not seem to be
lost, and is certainly feeling its way along. From it we learned that between
...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 8:20 AM
After the closing bells on Thursday, the White House announced that the President would be meeting with Majority and Minority Leaders from both the ...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 4:51 PM
For a trading day that had a good amount of potential for volatility,
today turned out the be pretty tame, especially for MBS which held a 6
tick ...
Fri, Dec 28 2012, 2:55 PM
Mortgage
rates continued a moderate trend of improvement from
mid-week, bringing rates to their best levels of the week on Friday.
All of th...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 11:21 AM
As expected, Thursday has proven to be the first real trading day of the
week. Those expectations were due to the fact that it's the first day
of...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 10:57 AM
The Department of Housing and Urban
Development and the U.S. Census Bureau had more good news for housing this
morning. Sales of newly constructed...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 9:57 AM
Okay, so here's something entirely un-mortgage related - productivity
this week stinks anyway. The kids are back from college, or on vacation from
s...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 7:59 AM
Thursday is indeed the first day of the week as it's the first
day where politicians will be back in action, potentially churning out
last-minute...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 4:19 PM
Treasuries put in a better performance than MBS today, thanks to the
"flight-to-safety" nature of this morning's rally. As expected,
economic dat...
Thu, Dec 27 2012, 2:30 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly lower on Thursday after markets received
their first Fiscal Cliff update of the week. Earlier this morning,
Senate ...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 12:57 PM
Mortgage
rates remained essentially unchanged this week as markets are
essentially still closed for the Christmas holiday. Technically,
fina...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 11:46 AM
Equities were one of the only places that bond markets were going to get
any sort of guidance today given the fact that economic data is
inconsequ...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 11:29 AM
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI)
released this morning outstripped analysts expectations with strong increases
in home prices over ...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 10:56 AM
Last week the commentary mentioned LO education for borrowers, but how about LO
education itself? I received some thoughtful notes on the subject.
...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 7:48 AM
After a day and a half off, markets return to a full session on
Wednesday, but only in the sense that markets are open all day. Beyond
the techni...
Wed, Dec 26 2012, 4:51 PM
Considering that the Thanksgiving holiday always begins with full market
closure on a Thursday, you can usually count on the juxtaposed Friday to
...
Mon, Dec 24 2012, 12:24 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher on Monday, though there were no material market movements driving the change. Lenders are erring on the side ...
Mon, Dec 24 2012, 11:23 AM
As-expected, it's been a silent morning for US trading and a surprisingly 'silent night' in Europe as well. There are no market movers, no instances o...
Mon, Dec 24 2012, 8:16 AM
If left to its own devices, the week ahead would be almost a complete non-issue, with little volume and inconsequential volatility due to 2-day Christ...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 11:36 AM
Risk markets tanked early in the overnight session (stocks and bond yields sharply lower) after news hit that the House didn't have enough support for...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 10:47 AM
Lender Processing Services has released
preliminary data from its monthly report on mortgage performance
statistics . Data for November was
deriv...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 10:33 AM
The good news is that we've survived. The bad news is that we're still
seemingly reliant upon politicians in Washington. But for the moment, go back
...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 8:59 AM
Whereas Thursday's session was characterized as a bit tricky due to the uncertain balance of importance between economic data and pervasive Fiscal C...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 4:19 PM
There was little reaction to this morning's economic data at 8:30am despite the fact that both reports were stronger-than expected. Consumer Sentimen...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 1:35 PM
The Office of
Comptroller of the Currency ( OCC ) reported today that 88.6 percent of the
mortgages serviced by selected national federal savings ...
Fri, Dec 21 2012, 1:26 PM
Mortgage rates fell moderately to end the week after the House of Representatives failed to pass a tax and spending bill aimed at averting Fiscal Clif...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 12:16 PM
This is the second part of an article summarizing the chapter on Mortgages from a Center for Responsible Lending (CRL)research paper titled The State...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 12:00 PM
U.S. house prices were up 0.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from September to October and rose 5.6 percent from the level 12 months earli...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 11:48 AM
Similarities abound between Wednesday and Thursday across the market. In both cases, the overnight session began with a moderately positive tone for ...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 10:53 AM
Existing home
sales rose 5.9 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04
units compared to a rate of 4.76 units in October. ...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 10:36 AM
Well, here is some interesting news for taxpayers, as if we don't have
enough: Fannie & Freddie may have lost $3 billion due to LIBOR fixing by
ba...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 10:08 AM
Following reports yesterday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have lost over $3 billion in the LIBOR scandal, FHFA issued the following statement: ...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 7:14 AM
Thursday's session is a bit tricky . Any value over time can be charted, and the general tone/sentiment/optimism of the Fiscal Cliff debate is no ex...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 4:18 PM
A big haul of economic reports had little lasting impact on trading levels this morning, but the stronger Philly Fed Index at 10am was enough to sugge...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 3:17 PM
The share of
mortgages refinanced by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae through the Home Affordable
Refinancing Program (HARP) dropped to 18.5 percent in Oc...
Thu, Dec 20 2012, 1:33 PM
The market movements that underpin the day to day changes in mortgage rates generally conveyed a sense of uncertainty and waiting as the busiest m...
Wed, Dec 19 2012, 12:10 PM
Today's trading has provided a bit of relief to yesterday's disconcerting run at technical boundaries. Even though past precedent suggests we may wel...
