Impact of Treasuries on Rates “Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came” was a 1970 movie with Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis (both of whom are still with us). What if the Treasury gave an auction and nobody bid, aside from Primary Dealers who must bid? That is one of the fears that drove
February 2010
The most-asked questions by home mortgage borrowers so far in 2010 are about where rates will go, how to lock rates in a volatile trading environment, and how home appraisals affect the lending process. Each question is addressed below. Where Will Rates Go By Summer? Rates on loans up to $417,000 are about 5% as
Mortgage Rate/Lock Update A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. His grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.” We started off the week with both the stock and bond markets making a little change for investors: both improved. The folks on Wall Street, if
A San Francisco Chronicle mortgage rate story yesterday does a good job simplifying the factors affecting mortgage rates as we move through 2010. It’s a useful consumer-friendly piece on how the Fed’s mortgage bond program works, when it’s ending and what might happen when it does end. It also includes updates on the homebuyer tax
GOP Senator’s Mortgage Company Closed. 53k Mortgage Companies in 2004 vs. 15k Now. Homeland Federal Mortgage, out of Oklahoma, was a mortgage broker until they recently shut down. Why is this worth mentioning? Interestingly, the owner is Republican state senator Dan Newberry who wrote, “Recent federal legislative initiatives that favor big banks have made it
Frank Rich’s piece about Sarah Palin in yesterday’s New York Times contains the beware-Palin’s-supposedly-naive-tactics warning we’ve seen a few times since her Tea Party hand job last week. But it also makes the relevant point that, despite a GOP end game that does nothing to help those hardest hit by recession, her populist message is
Here’s a deep bTunes album for those on The Street who are down. It’s Funhouse, the 1970 second album by the Iggy Pop fronted Stooges, and it’s hailed by most reputable most rock aficionados as the dawn of punk. But it’s way cooler and complex than most punk. If you don’t spring for the whole
Treasury vs. MBS Performance The $16 billion 30-yr bond auction yesterday almost seemed like an afterthought with traders focused on the buyback news. The 10-yr yield was well above 3.60% (not good), and the 30-yr yield came in at 4.72% – the cheapest level a 30-yr auction has come in at since June. But at
Dallas Fed President On Fed MBS Buying Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher weighed in with his thoughts on what will happen when the Fed ends their MBS buying program. He believes that the spread between Treasury securities and mortgage securities is abnormally low, and will increase, but said he believes the mortgage
Below is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s full testimony he was scheduled to deliver to the House Financial Services Committee today but the hearing was postponed due to weather. This testimony, when it does happen, will be followed by detailed Q&A which we will cover in more detail. For now, the most important point to highlight
Cash-Out vs. Cash-In Refi Stats Remember when cash-out refinancing was the bulk of our business, and any investor who would tweak their price slightly on this product would either see all or none of the business? Four or five years ago, that category of loan hit 88%, which, according to Freddie Mac, put another way,
According to the WSJ: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Wednesday appearance before a U.S. House panel has been postponed because of the ongoing weather issues in the nation’s capital. The House Financial Services Committee said Tuesday it was canceling all of its hearings for the week. The panel was supposed to hear Wednesday from Bernanke
Still Hard Times For Jumbo MBS Why wouldn’t investors want to gobble up securities made up of jumbo loans? Well, how about delinquencies? In a story out of Business Week, “US prime jumbo mortgages at least 60 days late backing securities reached 9.6% in January from 9.2% in December, the 32nd straight increase for “serious
I thought about taking today off from the commentary to celebrate, since yesterday I won all 4 quarters of my office’s Super Bowl pool! And then I remembered that I was the only one in the pool, don’t really have an office, and that the net effect of my $50 a square winnings was about
For the past three weeks, rates have closed market trading days within .25% of record lows. But the intraday rate swings have been dramatic as mortgage bond traders sort through economic data releases. Case in point: how rate markets reacted to today’s Jobs Report. Stocks rallied and mortgage bonds (that rates are tied to) sold
20k Jobs Lost In January, 8.42m Lost Since Recession Began December 2007 (Charts), 9.7% Unemployment
The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 20,000 private sector jobs in January, and December was revised from -85k to -150k. This means 24 of the last 25 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 8.42 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost.
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