Fri, Jul 29 2022, 6:03 PM
Modest Gains, But Huge Moves in Rate Sheets
By the end of the week, the power of MBS coupon stack compressio...
Fri, Jul 29 2022, 10:37 AM
Both the June PCE inflation data and the Employment Cost Index came in hotter than expected this morning. Bonds certainly thought about selling in re...
Fri, Jul 29 2022, 10:16 AM
It’s a zany world we live in, and forecasts and predictions mean little (as seen by interest rates this week). Where should we start? Rumors of mortga...
Thu, Jul 28 2022, 5:23 PM
Mortgage rates have been all over the map recently, both in terms of their movement and in their variation between lenders. It's not altogether uncom...
Thu, Jul 28 2022, 3:54 PM
Big Rally After Big GDP Miss
We don't often think much of GDP as a major consideration for the bond market, ...
Thu, Jul 28 2022, 12:23 PM
Feel free to debate recession vs no recession amongst yourselves. The economy is more complex than a single word, but today's GDP number says the eco...
Thu, Jul 28 2022, 11:10 AM
My cat Myrtle has some publicity once in a while, although she doesn’t want people knowing she can only hear out of one ear. Freddie Mac had some publ...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 5:59 PM
The Federal Reserve concluded one of its 8 regularly scheduled meetings in 2022 today. As expected, they announced a rate hike of 0.75%. But if you s...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 4:56 PM
MBS Outperform After Powell Discusses The Fed's Outlook
The Fed stuck closely to the script in today's annou...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 2:01 PM
Overall economic activity appears to Recent indicators of spending and production have picked up after edging down in the first quarter. Job softe...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 1:47 PM
Pending home sales broke out of a seven-month slump in May, gaining 0.7 percent. If this were baseball, we might now call it a “balk.” The National As...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 12:36 PM
A few weeks ago, expectations ramped up for the Fed to hike rates by 100bps at the conclusion of today's meeting. That sentiment lasted only a few da...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 12:01 PM
“Common sense is not a gift. It's a punishment because you have to deal with everyone who doesn't have it.” Common sense tells us that what goes up, m...
Wed, Jul 27 2022, 8:55 AM
The number of applications for residential mortgages retreated for the fourth consecutive period during the week ended July 22 according to the Weekly...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 4:23 PM
Some quick housekeeping before we dig into the headline: mortgage rates are slightly higher so far this week. The increases were in place on Monday. ...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 3:56 PM
Leading-Off And Pulling-Back Ahead of Fed
Bonds began the day in stronger territory thanks to another overni...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 12:42 PM
The pace of home price increases slowed slightly from April to May, but the change in each of the three S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indices and the Fed...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 11:33 AM
New home sales fell again in June, more than wiping out the increase posted for May. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban De...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 10:55 AM
July has been a month with a decidedly European flair for the US bond market. Sure, there's been plenty of inspiration from domestic inflation data a...
Tue, Jul 26 2022, 10:37 AM
What in blazes?! The Choco Taco has met its demise?! Food is something we all have in common. Last week’s, “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. ...
Mon, Jul 25 2022, 4:17 PM
Slow Start With Some Resilience After AM Weakness
Volume was "summertime low," which is par for the course o...
Mon, Jul 25 2022, 10:52 AM
Bonds rallied fairly sharply at the end of last week, largely in response to weaker economic data at home and abroad. In Friday's recap, we discussed...
Mon, Jul 25 2022, 10:08 AM
Here at the California MBA’s Western Secondary in Orange County, besides talk of Utah’s Pie and Beer Day yesterday, or maybe it is Pioneer Day, most o...
Fri, Jul 22 2022, 4:59 PM
Rally Accelerates After Weak PMI Data. Fed Coming Up Next Week
Eurozone PMI data was much weaker in the over...
Fri, Jul 22 2022, 4:50 PM
The market came into the week with a big focus on the scheduled policy announcement from the European Central Bank (ECB). While our focus remains on ...
Fri, Jul 22 2022, 11:12 AM
This week's decidedly European theme was only reinforced overnight as bonds benefitted from weaker PMI data in Germany, France, and the overall Eurozo...
Fri, Jul 22 2022, 10:57 AM
“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” What a gift it is to be able to read. Where are you reading thi...
Thu, Jul 21 2022, 4:26 PM
Big Bad Econ Data and Big ECB News = Big Victory For Bonds
Bonds shrugged off a 50bp hike from the European ...
Thu, Jul 21 2022, 3:38 PM
Thursday brought the much-anticipated policy announcement from the European Central Bank (ECB). While our focus remains on mortgage rates in an entir...
Thu, Jul 21 2022, 11:15 AM
If you had to pick today's most important calendar item based on its potential impact on the bond market, the European Central Bank (ECB) announcement...
Thu, Jul 21 2022, 10:21 AM
Just because something is interesting doesn’t mean it’s important. The demand for mortgages hit a 22-year low, which is both. And here’s an observatio...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 3:51 PM
Strong Start and Strong Reversal Ahead of ECB
European markets led bonds well into stronger territory overni...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 2:52 PM
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that June saw the 5th consecutive monthly decline in Existing Home Sales today. The annual pace o...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 10:37 AM
“Having plans sounds like a good idea until you have to put on clothes and leave the house.” Capital markets teams have plans, and STRATMOR’s current ...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 10:24 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said today that its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell again during th...
Wed, Jul 20 2022, 10:01 AM
On a week without much by way of domestic econ data and the biggest ticket market mover being Thursday's European Central Bank announcement, it's no s...
Tue, Jul 19 2022, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates are based primarily on the price of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which are essentially bonds consisting of numerous similar mortga...
Tue, Jul 19 2022, 12:58 PM
There were modest pullbacks in both the seasonally adjusted annual numbers of permits and housing starts in June. But it was only because of strong ga...
Tue, Jul 19 2022, 11:08 AM
If we were limited to only one observation about the bond market over the past few trading sessions, it would be that volume and volatility have been ...
Tue, Jul 19 2022, 10:53 AM
From Salt Lake City, Rich B. sends, “My mind is like an internet browser: 17 tabs are open, 4 of them are frozen, and I don’t know where the music is ...
Mon, Jul 18 2022, 4:42 PM
Weaker Despite Decent Mid-Day Bounce
Bonds began the week in weaker territory with yields pulled higher by E...
Mon, Jul 18 2022, 11:15 AM
This week's economic data is primarily focused on the housing market with NAHB, Housing Starts, and Existing Sales on the first 3 days respectively. ...
Mon, Jul 18 2022, 11:08 AM
Everyone is watching the value of their 401(k) plan go down. You should be watching it go down from “across the pond,” sitting at a sidewalk café in P...
Mon, Jul 18 2022, 10:58 AM
The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) released it's Housing Market Index (HMI) for July this morning. This measure of builder confidence fel...
Fri, Jul 15 2022, 5:02 PM
It was a week for paradoxes on several fronts, most notably when mortgage rates moved lower just after the Fed floated the idea of an even bigger hike...
Fri, Jul 15 2022, 3:38 PM
Why Were Rates Able to Defy Stronger Data?
With at least one Fed speaker mentioning Retail Sales as having a...
Fri, Jul 15 2022, 12:10 PM
With at least one Fed speaker mentioning Retail Sales as having a bearing on the Fed's debate between a 75bp and 100bp hike at the upcoming July meeti...
Fri, Jul 15 2022, 11:32 AM
Dang these five-day work weeks seem long! My cat Myrtle doesn’t seem overly concerned with work, days or weeks, as long as that line-caught ocean salm...
Thu, Jul 14 2022, 4:43 PM
A week ago today, we saw one of the most glaring examples of the popular Freddie Mac mortgage rate survey sending mixed signals to reporters and consu...
Thu, Jul 14 2022, 4:23 PM
Nice Bounce Back After a Bumpy Morning
All in all, today's trading range fell inside yesterday's and this we...
