Jobs ADP private sector jobs for September were +91,000. The market moves with the BLS report two days from now. Last month ADP was at +91,000 and BLS was at +0. Go figure. Challenger Announced Job Cuts The number is an eye-popping 115,730. Up from 51,114. The two biggest employers laying folks off are the [...]

Construction Spending was +0.2% for June. Private residential spending was down. Private nonresidential and public construction spending were up. ISM Manufacturing Index for July was 50.9 vs. 55.3 for June and estimates of 54.3. Readings below 50 mean a contraction. The full report also shows inflation moderating. This continues the recent trend which was created [...]

MBA Mortgage Applications -Purchase Index: Week/Week +4.8% -Refinance Index: Week/Week -9.2% -Composite Index: Week/Week -5.2% -Rising Treasury and mortgage rates were responsible for refi dip. Retail Sales -ICSC-Goldman: week/week +1.5% -ICSC-Goldman: year/year +3.5% -Redbook: year/year +5.2% Economic Activity In Non-Manufacturing Sector -June ISM non-manufacturing index down to 53.3 vs 54.6 in May -Reading above 50 [...]

Rates were up .25% to end last week on perception of improving situations in Greece, U.S. housing, U.S. jobs, and U.S. manufacturing. This week is light on economic data (calendar below), and jobs reports will be the highlights. Rates are slightly lower to begin this week as mortgage bonds rally to regain some of last [...]

Mortgage bonds are in their third straight week of gains, trading just above their best levels of 2011 last set March 16. Rates drop when bond prices rise like this, and the benchmark FNMA 30yr 4% coupon that most lenders use to price consumer rate sheets closed up 16 basis points today, making a 13 [...]

Yesterday we talked about how rate markets work and why inflation pushes rates higher. It was an intro to an update on much-higher February manufacturing inflation, yet rates had been holding at low levels. At least until yesterday afternoon, when bond markets sold off, pushing rates higher. And rate markets seem to have woken to [...]

Rates were down .25% last week, regaining much of the .375% rise of early-February. The North-African/Middle-Eastern uprising against dictators spread from Egypt to oil-producing Libya. Tensions grew last week as their leader Muammar Gaddafi fired repeatedly on his own citizens and made even crazier public statements than Charlie Sheen, the self-proclaimed man with fire-breathing fists. [...]

An Underwriter Explains Why Are Loans So Hard To Approve Lately I have been hearing from producers, some of whom are upset about the current lending environment, some not. But for a slightly different view of things, here is what one very experienced and knowledgeable underwriter wrote to me. This is worth the read even [...]

Goodbye, 2009. Typing “2009″ is so much easier than typing “2010″, but such is life. And folks who are better at using words than I am (“than me”?) say 2010 is pronounced “twenty-ten”, not “two-thousand ten”. Speaking of “2’s” and “1’s”, The U.S. Treasury had a record year of debt sales last year, selling more [...]

Just when mortgage brokers thought that it was safe to go back into the water and they were out of the headlines… In a story based on a Columbia University working paper that studied 700,000 loans made by a major national mortgage bank from 2004 to 2008, every loan originated by brokers is performing! Oh, [...]