Wed, Oct 19 2022, 8:18 AM
Mortgage application activity fell again during the week ended October 14 as mortgage interest rates hit their highest level in 20 years. The Market B...
Tue, Oct 18 2022, 5:30 PM
Secret Market Movers or New Normal For Intraday Volatility?
Today's most exciting moments arrived just after...
Tue, Oct 18 2022, 5:29 PM
Mortgage rates were generally unchanged today, but not without plenty of volatility in between. Mortgage lenders would prefer to set their rates once...
Tue, Oct 18 2022, 5:23 PM
The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) has only been publishing builder confidence numbers since the mid 1980s. It's possible--if not likely...
Tue, Oct 18 2022, 11:16 AM
When salmon return to the river after spending a number of years in the ocean, they don't charge upstream immediately. They spend time moving in and ...
Tue, Oct 18 2022, 9:40 AM
Do you think putting together a loan is tough? How ‘bout a giant skeleton in your front yard? This dedicated individual has documented the process of ...
Mon, Oct 17 2022, 5:40 PM
Not only is the mortgage rate landscape vastly different than most of the past 20 years in terms of outright levels, but the way things change from da...
Mon, Oct 17 2022, 4:26 PM
Technically Stronger But it Feels Weaker
Bonds began the day in stronger territory with overnight support co...
Mon, Oct 17 2022, 12:40 PM
Recall that last Friday saw an extremely sharp selling spree led by UK and exacerbated by domestic data (consumer inflation expectations). Yields end...
Mon, Oct 17 2022, 9:35 AM
There’s a splendid joke about the definition of an economist being someone who “will know tomorrow why the things they predicted yesterday didn't happ...
Fri, Oct 14 2022, 9:09 PM
Unsurprisingly, the market remains intently focused on inflation as the key driver of Fed policy and rate volatility. This week, the biggest inflation...
Fri, Oct 14 2022, 4:28 PM
Even When It's Good, It's Bad
Bonds had a good overnight session with fairly steady gains in both Asia and E...
Fri, Oct 14 2022, 4:20 PM
Rent growth is coming down from its post pandemic pace, and rents may, in some isolated cases be inching lower according to two new studies. While the...
Fri, Oct 14 2022, 12:32 PM
Bonds had a good overnight session with fairly steady gains in both Asia and Europe. Kwarteng, the British Finance Minister who kicked off the worst ...
Fri, Oct 14 2022, 9:44 AM
Camping: “where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.” Lenders have done a remarkable job in the last few years trying to reduce h...
Thu, Oct 13 2022, 5:00 PM
How Much Should We Read Into Today's Big Reversal?
Bonds may have ended the day in negative territory, but t...
Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:22 PM
There was no way to be sure what the effect of today's economic data would be on mortgage rates. All we knew is that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) w...
Thu, Oct 13 2022, 11:42 AM
Pretty simple this morning, at first anyway. Bonds hoped to see just a modicum of relief in the most important data series of 2022, the Consumer Pric...
Thu, Oct 13 2022, 10:13 AM
Why aren’t there 103’s on rate sheets? With 30-year mortgage rates firmly in the 7 percent range, the market has moved too fast for any kind of substa...
Wed, Oct 12 2022, 5:08 PM
Mortgage rates ended the day at slightly lower levels compared to the close of business yesterday. That's the first time rates have fallen day-over-d...
Wed, Oct 12 2022, 4:16 PM
Fully Free to Focus on CPI After Tuesday's Uneventful Data and Events
Bonds shrugged off this morning's PPI ...
Wed, Oct 12 2022, 12:42 PM
Bonds had a mixed overnight session with modest gains initially and moderate losses during European hours. In a bit of a break from the norm, German ...
Wed, Oct 12 2022, 10:15 AM
Borrowers will bear the brunt of this, but rumors from several sources have Fair Isaac planning on giving most residential lenders an early Christmas ...
Wed, Oct 12 2022, 8:39 AM
Mortgage application volume fell again last week, but the declines were small compared to the double-digit declines in all indices during the week end...
Tue, Oct 11 2022, 3:42 PM
Bonds Dodge British Bullet But Still Fighting For Survival
The overnight session and especially yesterday's ...
Tue, Oct 11 2022, 2:34 PM
For many of the holidays in the US bond market, relevant overseas bond markets are also closed. The opposite is true on several occasions with Indige...
Tue, Oct 11 2022, 2:24 PM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) for the month of September today. The index uses borrow...
Tue, Oct 11 2022, 12:05 PM
The holiday trading session was dominated by another snowball sell-off in British bonds with the UK 10yr yield rising more than 30bps. Much like last...
Tue, Oct 11 2022, 8:59 AM
Here in Louisville, at AgFirst’s Correspondent Lending Conference, much of the discussion involves going after builder business (“focusing on how fast...
Fri, Oct 7 2022, 7:30 PM
The resilience of the economy is a matter of debate with different cases to be made depending on the data. But when it comes to the Fed's favorite rep...
Fri, Oct 7 2022, 4:24 PM
Logical Outcome For Bonds. Still Waiting on Data to Tell a New Story
The jobs report came in just slightly a...
Fri, Oct 7 2022, 11:37 AM
Jobs are great for people who like eat food and buy things, but too many jobs are bad for people who like low rates. And when the labor market is bei...
Fri, Oct 7 2022, 9:17 AM
While investors who “jumped the gun” on establishing their own conforming conventional loan limits ahead of the official proclamation at the end of No...
Thu, Oct 6 2022, 4:25 PM
Weakest Levels of The Week Ahead of Jobs Report
Bonds sold off mid-morning after starting off relatively fla...
Thu, Oct 6 2022, 3:15 PM
Mortgage rates were refreshingly lower at the beginning of the week with most lenders continuing to improve through Tuesday afternoon. Much has chang...
Thu, Oct 6 2022, 12:15 PM
Without commenting on the odds of any particular outcome, Thursday can't help but fill the role of "placeholder" given the proximity of tomorrow's big...
Thu, Oct 6 2022, 10:00 AM
One can always focus on lending activity hitting a 25-year low, or the once mighty loanDepot reducing its own liquidity or handing raises out to execu...
Wed, Oct 5 2022, 4:19 PM
The mortgage rate world has been on a wild ride in general, and even more so in the past few weeks. The crux of the drama was a British fiscal policy...
Wed, Oct 5 2022, 4:08 PM
Confirmation of What We Probably Already Knew
Bonds began the day in weaker territory after a slew of "not-t...
Wed, Oct 5 2022, 9:58 AM
As feared, the recent rally in the bond market is quickly proving that it was fueled by a correction from panicked levels surrounding the UK drama in ...
Wed, Oct 5 2022, 9:21 AM
Yogi Berra, when asked about staying in a particular hotel, replied, “The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.” I’ve attended ...
Wed, Oct 5 2022, 7:44 AM
There were two storms brewing last week and each contributed to driving mortgage applications to generational lows. The Mortgage Bankers Association (...
Tue, Oct 4 2022, 4:53 PM
We're measuring our mortgage rate spikes in terms of years and decades at the moment. Progress in the other direction has been elusive--especially si...
Tue, Oct 4 2022, 4:36 PM
Bonds Might Have Lost Ground Today if Not For Big Data Surprise
Bonds ended up scratching out modest gains t...
Tue, Oct 4 2022, 1:01 PM
Bonds got off to a decent start in the overnight session with help from a lower-than-expected rate hike from the RBA (Australia's central bank) and on...
Tue, Oct 4 2022, 9:02 AM
Now we have a butter shortage raising prices ahead of the holidays. Great. While margarine makers are licking their chops over the news, vegans and ot...
Mon, Oct 3 2022, 4:15 PM
Spending on residential construction, while down a bit in August and in spite of the gloom and doom about the housing market, continues to run signifi...
Mon, Oct 3 2022, 3:28 PM
Nice Rally, But Not Out of The Woods Yet
Bonds rallied in two distinct waves on Monday. The first came in ...
Mon, Oct 3 2022, 2:54 PM
Mortgage rates remain elevated in the context of the past decade and 2022 in general, but they continue making progress after hitting long-term highs ...
Mon, Oct 3 2022, 11:12 AM
Bond yields trickled sideways to slightly stronger to start the overnight session, but experienced better gains as the big news out of the UK made the...
