As Robbie and I prepare to head to Chicago this weekend for the “MBA National,” yesterday I was speaking with someone at the bar at Legs Inn in Northern Michigan. (Yeah, it’s somethin’.) We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about the economy, or politics, and I told her that I’ve been in capital markets for over 40 years and there are plenty of clever sayings about economics. One of them is, “The stock market is not the economy.” How good is the U.S. economy? You wouldn’t know it by stocks. Elliot F. Eisenberg, Ph.D. writes, “U.S. equity market performance is increasingly being led by the…
After yesterday's nice comeback, here's how we're thinking about today. Fridays before 3-day weekends: frequently see a move to the sidelines among certain investors. Traders who were tactically long bonds over the past 2 days could be booking profit. Translation: some of the strength over the past 2 days could turn to weakness for purely mechanical reasons. frequently see less determination to aggressively pursue new trading ideas in the absence of compelling econ data. often "don't count" when it comes to forming our view of prevailing short term trends. Bonds are starting out…
Yields "Plummet" to Best Level In... 4 trading days... All the way back on October 2nd (last Friday), intraday lows were 5.151%. In other words, today's rally was definitely nice and definitely worth discussing, but if we're witnessing the inception of anything legitimately exciting here, it's in an embryonic stage as of today. 10yr yields would need to be below 5.0% just over a month from now to confirm a truly big shift. As for drivers, we'd have a hard time reconciling today's friendly reversal without giving some credit to investors "buying the dip" in bond prices (or the supportive…
Mortgage rates moved lower today at their fastest pace in 3 months with the average top-tier 30yr fixed scenario ultimately falling 0.09%. There were thrills and chills along the way as well. The day actually began with a 0.01% INCREASE versus yesterday's latest levels. This highlights a unique aspect of our rate index which has the ability to change more than once per day in response to mortgage lenders making intraday updates to their rate offerings. In other words, almost every lender lowered their rates today--many of them more than once. As has often been the case lately, the…
“My friend is an EMT, and she's amazing on trivia night. She's usually the first responder.” The United States is full of trivia. Did you know that part of Florida is in the Central Time Zone? (Fourteen states are in more than one time zone!) Do you know what Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kenau Reeves, and Michelle Pfeiffer have in common? They all can qualify for a HECM (aka, reverse mortgage)! Last time I checked, about 10k people a day turn 62; if you don’t have a HECM division, or a HECM product, your company should consider one. What isn’t so trivial are volumes in our biz, both in dollars and…
Bonds were initially moderately weaker this morning morning in a move that followed oil prices and hawkish Fed comments. Chris Waller said more hikes were needed due to a strong economy, persistently high inflation, and the risk that inflation expectations would become unanchored after 5.5 years above target. This hit the short end of the curve at 4:30am ET and brought Fed Funds Futures for the middle of next year back to yesterday's levels. Oil prices were rising at the same time and were already pushing bonds higher (or the correlation is coincidental, and bonds just "felt like"…
Full Recovery! The patient looked critical this morning with 10yr yields pushing up to new long-term highs just over 5.36%, but by the early afternoon, there was a full recovery. In fact, most of the recovery arrived after 9:30am ET (and before 11am ET). Any time 9:30am kicks off a big move, we think about things like ETF tradeflows and other money shuffling in the retail investor space. Oil prices also moved lower at that time, but not enough to justify the swings seen in the bond market. The afternoon's 10yr Treasury auction was well-received (as they often are when yields tag long-term…
It was an exciting day for mortgage rates, and while we technically ended up slightly higher, it could have been much worse. In fact, it WAS much worse earlier in the day, but only for about 30 minutes. Our daily rate index can be updated throughout the day if mortgage lenders change their rates in sufficient numbers. If we reported only the day's opening rate sheets, top-tier 30yr fixed rates would have been over 7.7%. Almost immediately after those initial rates came out (around 9:30am ET), the bond market started to recover. By 11am, multiple lenders had already improved. There was…
Lender and Broker Products, Services, and Software “Chicagoans have one unbreakable rule: no ketchup on a hot dog. Mortgage lenders should have one too: no questions that don't belong on the application. Floify brings that same discipline to MBA Annual in Chicago, October 11–14 at the Hyatt Regency, where the industry celebrates homeownership and 250 years of the American Dream. With Dynamic Apps, lenders configure a tailored application for every loan purpose (HELOC, construction, ag, non-QM and more) so borrowers see only what applies. Then Dynamic AI fills in the rest. Borrowers upload a…
If there's been a safe bet to make on isolated rally days over the past 2 months, it's that they'll be soon followed by a return to the prevailing trend toward higher rates. Today fills that role with gusto. We hate gusto--this kind anyway. Unfortunately, this kind of gusto is all we have, and there's no convenient, singular explanation even though many will try to tell you there is. We can tell you that it's not oil, Europe, auctions, war headlines, corporate issuance, fiscal concerns, strong economy, or foreign demand. But at any given point in the uptrend, several of these things may be in…
Headlines and excerpts are sourced from Mortgage News Daily. All rights remain with the original publisher.
