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Mortgage News Daily News Feed

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MBS MID-DAY: Treasuries Green, MBS Red

Posted To: MBS Commentary

MBS Live : MBS Morning Market Summary Mortgage markets are less than thrilled with the broader move into higher rates that was effectively confirmed yesterday, and we have 2 negative reprice alerts on MBS Live , early in the session to show for it. Although Fannie 3.0s managed to open in the green, it was only a byproduct of a resounding rally in Treasuries overnight from 2.06+ to 1.96 by 4:30am New York time. From then on out, Treasuries leaked higher in yield into Jobless Claims. MBS were dipped briefly into negative territory, but managed to "fade" the Claims data (FADE: jargon for trading in such a way that runs counter to the conventionally accepted suggestion of the data), but only for so long before stronger home sales data and the Fed's Treasury buying operation (which proved difficult...(read more)

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Home Price Gains Triple Inflation, but Not Without Distressed Sales

Posted To: MND NewsWire

As has every other price-related report, the one issued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today confirmed the upward momentum of home prices in the first quarter of 2013. FHFA's Home Price Index (HPI) rose 1.9 percent, the seventh consecutive quarter that the seasonally adjusted, purchase-only index has risen. The 1.9 percent quarter rise may actually understate a growing momentum; the seasonally adjusted index rose 1.3 percent just in March, the last month of the quarter. This was the 14 th consecutive increase in the monthly HPI. Since the first quarter of 2012 home prices have increased 6.7 percent . FHFA points out that the cost of other goods and services have risen 1.4 percent over the last four quarters so the inflation adjusted rise in home prices is 5.2 percent, 3.71 times...(read more)

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FHFA Watchdog Sends Milestone Report to Congress

Posted To: MND NewsWire

The fifth Semiannual Report from the Office of Inspector General ( OIG ) of the Federal Housing Finance Agency ( FHFA ) was released to Congress today. The report, prepared under the direction of Steve A. Linick, Inspector General, catalogues the audit and evaluation work done by OIG between October 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013 and the current status of FHFA, the government sponsored enterprises ( GSEs ) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks ( FHLBanks ). It also recounts investigative activities in support of federal and state prosecutors pursuing instances of fraud in the housing industry. In a letter accompanying the report Linick said that his office is mindful that the long term success of FHFA is necessarily affected by the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the GSEs...(read more)

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The Day Ahead: MBS in Full Melt-Down Mode. What Next?

Posted To: MBS Commentary

The idea of "tapering" the Fed's long term asset purchases isn't as new as the past two weeks might make it seem. It was most visibly introduced in early February when both Bullard and Fisher spoke out in favor of the notion. But a quick count of all Reuters newswires in which the word has appeared since then shows that it really exploded on April 10th after the last FOMC Minutes release. Suddenly, "tapering" was the talk of the town and was strangely soothing to bond bulls fearing a more abrupt exit and strangely emboldening to Fed Hawks, seen as proponents of immediate tapering. Then a month of relative excellence for bond markets caused amnesia on tapering topics and the new FOMC Announcement on 5/1 even left the door open INCREASED asset purchases. In the midst of a raft of mostly negative...(read more)

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MBS Annihilated After Fed Confirms The Hype

Posted To: MBS Commentary

MBS Live : MBS Afternoon Market Summary Today was among the worst on record for MBS since the carnage that was late 2010. We still have yet to see anything rival Black Wednesday's, but almost exactly 4 years after that 2+ point evisceration (5/27/2009), today's loss of just over a point--in the midst of what was already an unpleasant downtrend--conjured up the same sort of gut-wrenching feelings. At least in the current case, there's some measure of logic involved, not to mention much more advanced notice. It might not prove to be the 4-month game changer that Black Wednesday was, but the problem is that it could be part of confirming that an already possible game-change is in progress--that being the ongoing long-term uptrend in rates that began after Treasuries hit all-time lows in mid 2012...(read more)

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