Fri, Oct 2 2020, 4:31 PM
MBS Outperformance is Actually Helping Rates
Overnight news of Trump's covid diagnosis caused some volatilit...
Fri, Oct 2 2020, 10:50 AM
By now, most everyone has heard that the president was diagnosed with covid overnight. At face value, this seems like it should be very big news for...
Thu, Oct 1 2020, 5:28 PM
Mortgage rates were mixed today, depending on the lender. The underlying bond market (which dictates day to day changes in rates) has been more volati...
Thu, Oct 1 2020, 3:52 PM
Bonds Fight To Remain in Ultra-Narrow Range
Yesterday presented a short-term, small scale threat to the bond...
Thu, Oct 1 2020, 9:24 AM
Before we talk about anything remotely negative for the bond market, let's lay out some context. The technical ceiling in 10yr yields that we'll be e...
Wed, Sep 30 2020, 4:38 PM
Mortgage rates don't just magically appear . Lenders don't choose them arbitrarily. To sustain the pace and scope of the mortgage market in the US (an...
Wed, Sep 30 2020, 4:35 PM
Bonds Finally Make a Move. How Serious Is It?
After more than 2 months of a narrow sideways range and more t...
Wed, Sep 30 2020, 9:45 AM
There has been an uncanny amount of sideways momentum in the bond market for months. The range has grown even narrower over the past 3 weeks with ...
Tue, Sep 29 2020, 4:00 PM
Treasury Consolidation Runs Out of Room, But MBS Keep Gaining
MBS continue to outperform due to favorable s...
Tue, Sep 29 2020, 3:59 PM
The average mortgage lender continues to offer top tier conventional 30yr fixed rates in the "high 2% to low 3%" neighborhood. Exactly where any given...
Tue, Sep 29 2020, 9:37 AM
The absence of volatility in the bond market cannot be overemphasized at the moment, or during most any moment since mid August. Rather than drift to...
Mon, Sep 28 2020, 3:49 PM
Jobs Week. Now Can We Break The Range?
The end of the week brings the first Friday of the month (of October!...
Mon, Sep 28 2020, 9:33 AM
The end of the week brings the first Friday of the month (of October!) and thus the big jobs report--the economic data that has ruled all others thr...
Fri, Sep 25 2020, 3:50 PM
Mortgage Rate Update Considering this week's generally positive drift in rates, we shouldn't expect lenders to get less busy any time soon. In recent ...
Fri, Sep 25 2020, 3:50 PM
Treasuries, MBS Back on Same Page After 2 Weeks On Different Paths
MBS prices were generally losing ground, ...
Fri, Sep 25 2020, 10:09 AM
Bear with me while I'm forced to crank up the power on my analytical microscope in order to find anything interesting to say about one of the least vo...
Thu, Sep 24 2020, 3:14 PM
MBS Outperform; Bonds Stay Defiantly Sideways Overall
The stock market tried a few different moves on the bo...
Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:52 AM
It's no secret that the bond market has been sideways for a month and a half by even the strictest definitions, and broadly sideways since first settl...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 4:16 PM
Mortgage rates didn't do much today. The average lender was effectively unchanged from yesterday. The same could be said yesterday, and the day before...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 4:05 PM
Stocks Try to Help, But Bonds Stay Relentlessly Flat
Econ data, Treasury auctions and Fed speakers all faile...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 9:25 AM
You know times are tough in the world of bond market analysis when I resort to using an uninspired bullet point list of events for a headline. The on...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 4:55 PM
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the two government sponsored agencies that guarantee timely payment of principal and interest to the investors who fron...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 4:37 PM
Stocks vs Bonds; Bonds vs Supply
There's a fairly strong case to be made for stock market weakness helpin...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 10:04 AM
Remember simpler times when following interest rate movements meant waiting for economic data to come out and counting on logical, repeatable, predict...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 3:35 PM
Stocks vs Bonds; Bonds vs Supply
There's a fairly strong case to be made for stock market weakness helpin...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 10:06 AM
One of my favorite pastimes is debunking the notion that stock prices and bonds yields 'always' correlate. Years of indoctrination from the conventio...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 5:38 PM
Mortgage rates are most influenced by the bond market and the bond market is most influenced by the Federal Reserve (aka "The Fed"). So when the Fed s...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 5:30 PM
Range Trading Settling in For Long(er) Haul
With no significant bond market volatility in response to this w...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 9:47 AM
Tossed coconut salad... Fresh coconut milk... New England boiled coconut... There were only so many menu choices for Yosemite Sam working with one i...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 4:56 PM
Yesterday's policy announcement from the Federal Reserve had a chance to cause significant volatility for the bond market and the bond market is the c...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 4:06 PM
Still Waiting on Bonds to Attempt a Range Breakout
Yesterday's Fed announcement managed to deliver the bare ...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 9:44 AM
Yesterday's Fed announcement managed to deliver the bare minimum of the market's expectations and underdeliver on fairly reasonable hopes. That res...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 4:43 PM
What Did The Fed Actually Change?
Here are the most notable changes:
The vague notion of symmetric 2 per...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 2:06 PM
The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time, thereby promoting its maximum ...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 10:03 AM
Coronavirus is responsible for many "firsts." Apart from the obvious impact on daily life there are firsts for the economy and monetary policy as wel...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 4:21 PM
What will the Fed do to mortgage rates ? This is actually a bit of a trick question . The Fed doesn't set mortgage rates. The Fed's policy rate applie...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 3:54 PM
Locking vs Floating Ahead of Potentially Big Fed Announcement
First thing's first: if you haven't seen the a...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 10:46 AM
In August, we witnessed a rapid acceleration in expectations for the Fed's long-awaited inflation framework shift. Although it seemed rather precipit...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 4:42 PM
Small Scale Volatility In The Bigger Picture
The adverse market fee continues to dominate lock/float conside...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 9:34 AM
Bonds have been consolidating aggressively for an entire month . 10yr yields have been perfectly contained between 0.63 and 0.73 with one brief occa...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 5:10 PM
If you're in the mortgage process currently or if you will be soon, there is a tremendously important development to be aware of. The net effect is th...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 5:05 PM
Lock Decisions Still Hinge on Adverse Market Fee
Without any significant volatility in the bond market, mort...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 9:39 AM
There's nothing quite like the visual (and visceral) impact of opening up MBS Live in the morning only to see a big drop in the blue line. Today is o...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 6:03 PM
It's Thursday and thus time, once again, for the weekly mortgage rate survey from Freddie Mac. News organizations and even some bond market strategist...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 4:55 PM
Lock Decisions Still Hinge on Adverse Market Fee
The bond market had a decent showing today, ultimately rall...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 10:28 AM
Central banks are engaging in unprecedented levels of stimulus and transparency. The US is one of the worst offenders, spending at a record pace whil...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 3:44 PM
Mortgage rates haven't moved much so far this week and they were surprisingly steady at the end of last week despite volatility in the underlying bond...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 3:09 PM
It Could Have Been a Lot Worse
Although the bond market definitely had its own reasons to weaken last Friday...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 4:40 PM
Stock Market Weakness To The Rescue
Last Friday tied August 11th as the worst day of since early June. It w...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 9:08 AM
Up until last Friday, bonds had improved decisively for 5 consecutive days. It's fairly rare to see these sorts of winning streaks last more than 5 d...
