Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: • Jerome H. (Jay) Powell, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System • Jeremy C. Stein, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

First thing's first: we need to be really clear about just how dead markets are today. Friday was the slowest trading day of the year and today is shaping up to be perhaps even worse. At the noon hour, less than 120k 10yr futures contracts will have changed hands. The hour from 11am to 12 noon will be lucky to hit 14k. That same hour last Friday saw over 55k contracts. For context, several hours earlier in the month approached 200k contracts. So to say things are dead is an affront to zombies and ghosts everywhere.

All that having been said, there has been a slightly bullish undertone in bond markets since around 10am that has seen Fannie 3.5's rise from around 101-30 to 102-03. They briefly hit 102-05 but have since fallen back down in the time it's taken to type this update. If this were any other day, the shape of trading is such that we'd soon be expecting some of the characteristically early lenders to offer a small token reprice for the better.

But given both the fact that it's a somewhat conservative time of year for rate sheets as well as the fact that volume is catastrophically nonexistent, we'd be more comfortable simply saying that we don't see much cause for reprices for the worse at the moment, and there are infinitesimally small chances of equally small reprices for *A* lender or (maybe) two. All in all, more of a "steady as she goes" update for those who might not find themselves diligently glued to MBS prices today.