When you have a day as weak as last Friday was, the most informative subsequent trading session is one that is either similarly weak or strongly positive.  In either of those cases we'd get some measure of confirmation or refutation about what Friday really was.  

As it stands, today's session did more to thread the proverbial needle, leaving the bigger picture in limbo.  On the surface, it certainly looked like markets were in the process of confirming last week's bounce, but there are several caveats that paint a more balanced picture.  

First, keep in mind that there was an extra day of trading to which domestic markets were quickly trying to catch up.  Asian equities markets were up substantially.  US stocks also gained a ton of ground today, but it was nowhere near what the typical correlation with Asian equities markets would suggest (i.e. the S&P was up less than 4% from Thursday's close while the Nikkei was up roughly 10%).  

In addition, US bond markets coped with vast amounts of new corporate issuance today.  Apple, alone, brought $12 bln in new supply to the market and was joined by several other large issuers for a total of more than $20 bln.  That's a big day of issuance, and it means that Treasuries were effectively playing with a handicap (easily seen in the fact that MBS were unchanged on the day while 10yr yields were more than 3bps higher).  

Long story short, we have bond markets essentially holding their ground while global equities markets stocks surged.  10yr yields remained under the more critical 1.84% level as well.  None of this guarantees that bonds will continue to hold their ground, or even that we're not in the process of bouncing toward higher rates, but neither does it confirm those unfriendly developments.


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
102-11 : +0-01
Treasuries
10 YR
1.7790 : +0.0330
Pricing as of 2/16/16 5:22PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
8:55AM  :  Mustering a Modest Bounce After Overnight Weakness

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Timothy Baron  :  "Cancellation/ Termination Date, Based on Original Value, Borrower-Initiated Cancellation-- For mortgages closed on or after 7/29/99, the earlier of: • the date the mortgage loan balance is first scheduled to reach 80% of the original value of the property, OR • any date after the mortgage loan balance has actually reached 80% of the original value of the property. No minimum seasoning requirement."
Timothy Baron  :  "See pages 3 and 4 here, NT: https://www.mgic.com/pdfs/71-41599hopa.pdf"
Noah Thompson  :  "is there a minimum amount of time required on a PMI policy once it is issued? Buyer is going to be at 82% LTV but will be getting large bonus later this year and wants to pay it down to under 80%."
Andy Pada, Jr.  :  "to remove MI, is there a seasoning requirement to use appraised value on a refinance?"
Gus Floropoulos  :  "PHH and Wells look better than Citi on my side"
Eric Weishaar  :  "Anybody have a suggestion for the best priced VA High Balance lender, getting killed once we cross $417k"
Dominick Cordone  :  "base only"
Caroline Roy  :  "is the county max FHA loan amount inclusive of the UFMIP?"
Ted Rood  :  ""lead" might be a tad on the optimistic side"
Jared Price  :  "Anyone have a way of getting a construction loan to build a Buddhist temple in California? I have a lead..."