Despite a solid day of volume and fairly noticeable mid-day bout of weakness, not much truly "happened" for bond markets today.  There was plenty of reason to suspect that the Philly Fed data would come in weaker than expected (why forecasters didn't see those reasons is beyond us), but when it did just that, both stocks and bonds seemed to pause, look at each other, and ask "which way do we go?"

The 6-month outlook component came in about as strong as the rest of the report was weak.  That potentially helped confuse markets at least decide that they didn't need to embark on a flight-to-safety in the face of rotten economic data.  With that decision made, the only other directional options were sideways and higher for stocks/bond yields.  They did a bit of both by the end of the day. 

At present, 10yr yields are only 2bps higher than yesterday and MBS only 3-4 ticks lower in price.  In other words, we continue to NOT be dealing with big, decisive movements.  Sadly, we continue to not be sure where the motivation for the next one will come from.  Right now, it's as good an explanation as any to say bond markets are trending slightly weaker so far in February by way of correction to a much stronger trend in January. 


MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
96-11 : -0-02
FNMA 3.5
100-19 : -0-03
FNMA 4.0
104-02 : -0-04
Treasuries
2 YR
0.3225 : +0.0035
10 YR
2.7536 : +0.0196
30 YR
3.7241 : +0.0171
Pricing as of 2/20/14 4:27PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
3:49PM  :  Gaining Some Ground After Hours; Reprices Almost Justified
2:29PM  :  Bouncing Along Same Levels Since Mid-Morning
10:31AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Philly Fed Much Weaker, but so are Bond Markets; Negative Reprice Potential
8:58AM  :  Bond Markets Unchanged to Marginally Weaker After First Round of Data

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Tim McNerney  :  "what IS the consensus that business has dropped off so drastically. I know of several broker shops closing, another that just laid off two LO's and a lender rep getting set to be fired at month end and another lender rep that just transferred out from a long relationship to another one. What IS truly happening?"
Matt Hodges  :  "refi shops not adjusting?"
Mike Drews  :  "i'm slammed right now"
Joseph Daquino  :  "Me to, having a great month. "
Matt Hodges  :  "me too, you make your market, IMHO"
Nathan Miller  :  "ditto solid month"
Tim McNerney  :  "location location location...I get it and some places and some shops are going to do better...however like JRS said...it feels like there just is not enough business to be had...not necessarily convert but to be had to begin with "
blarney27  :  "I wonder if the number of LOs in the industry matches the 20 year low in applications?"