Boring, Sideways Day. Does Wednesday's Fed Announcement Even Matter? Neocloud concerns continued to experience a small correction/consolidation after last week's surge. Interest rates could have justified a bit of weakness as a result, but managed to hold fairly steady. Bond market indecision likely has more to do with that and less to do with any sort of Fed Day anticipation. Markets have almost fully priced in a "pause." Any Fed-induced volatility would thus be dependent on verbiage--either in the announcement itself or the 2:30pm ET press conference. This is one of those Fed meetings that…
It was a remarkably calm day for the mortgage market on two separate levels. First off, the average lender set this morning's rates right in line with yesterday's latest levels. Additionally, there were very few intraday changes (and in those cases, rates improved modestly). [thirtyyearmortgagerates] All of the above is made possible by the fact that the bond market stayed right in line with yesterday's levels all day long. This has happened for two straight days now, and it's the sort of stability that seemed like a distant memory several weeks ago. Will it last? There's never any way to…
The ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said, “Sometimes the best victory is the battle that was not fought.” In a shrinking residential market there are a lot of potential battles, for example: “Rob, are you hearing that some IMBs are not charging an origination fee or putting caps on LO comp for jumbo loans?” Of course, especially if the independent mortgage bank, or broker, is in an area where’s you’re battling it out with credit unions and banks. If you have a $2 million loan, and an IMB’s LO is charging a point, that’s $20k, but if an originator at a CU or depository bank is charging…
"Neocloud" has entered the commentary. This is shorthand for the market segment in which Coreweave operates. Neocloud companies have been the epicenter of recent concerns in tech that have helped fuel the mid October bond rally. Their negative momentum leveled off last Thursday--the same time bond yields bottomed. Neocloud stocks are up sharply this morning and their bond yields are falling. Coreweave yields are back to last Wednesday's levels (though still hugely elevated from early October levels). The consolidation mirrors the bond market over the past several sessions, although…
Bonds Hold Ground Despite Some Healing in Tech Monday was exceptionally uneventful for the bond market--as is more often than not the case for data-free Mondays without any other major developments. There were some minor developments though. Tech stocks bounced back a bit, closing at their best level since last Wednesday. Corporate bond yields for Coreweave (a recent focal point for tech sector contagion potential) also moved slightly lower. On most recent occasions, that would imply upward pressure on mortgage rates. In that light, today's sideways performance was a victory.
It was an uneventful day for mortgage rates, which is just the sort of thing you want to see when the average lender is just a hair above the lowest levels in more than a month. There were no significant economic reports or other market developments that caused any major volatility for rates/bonds. The dominant theme, of late, has been investor rotation out of AI-related assets and into the bond market. Excess demand for bonds is good for rates, all else equal. But there's a nuance. Corporate bonds related to certain tech companies have seen sharply lower demand. That's actually been good for…
Lender and Broker Products, Services, and Software Manual document reviews, repeated data entry and time-consuming “stare and compare” tasks slow down back-office processes. ICE Aurora is an enterprise mortgage AI solution that helps lenders and servicers move from manual, fragmented steps to more connected, AI-supported workflows. This allows more time for the work that matters. AI-assisted capabilities span the loan lifecycle. They include compliance and investor guideline lookups, document classification, loan data validation, and AI voice and chat agents for borrowers. ICE Aurora embeds…
Bonds are technically just a hair stronger this morning, but in the slightly bigger picture, nothing has happened yet this week (not that we'd expect that to be the case before 10am on a Monday). The tech stock narrative that precipitated a sharp bond rally last Thursday continues to consolidate in a sideways pattern. Bonds are doing the same. Both are waiting for whatever's next. Wednesday's Fed announcement could be a source of inspiration if any forward guidance manages to slip through Warsh's forward guidance moat.
Slightly Weaker, But Much Stronger on The Week Friday was calm and sideways in the bigger picture. Sure, a 4+ bp increase in 10yr yields and an MBS decline of just over an eighth of a point might sound somewhat unpleasant on the average day, but considering we saw 4 times as much movement in the other, friendlier direction yesterday, we're not bothered. Rationale was rational to boot. The NASDAQ drifted sideways to slightly higher and nittier grittier canaries like Coreweave bond yields bounced back slightly lower as well. Overall, today did nothing to change the big picture. We're still…
Yesterday was an exciting day for rates with the lowest levels since September 23rd and a fairly brisk decline versus the previous day. Today? Fairly boring by comparison. Rates were technically a hair higher, which isn't too surprising given the prevailing motivations in the tech sector. Yesterday's rate rally coincided with heavy selling in tech stocks. With those same stocks avoiding drama today (and the NASDAQ moving slightly higher overall), bond yields (aka "rates") also inched higher. The average mortgage lender moved up 0.03% for a top-tier 30yr fixed scenario leaving our index…
Headlines and excerpts are sourced from Mortgage News Daily. All rights remain with the original publisher.
