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Mortgage News
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| 3/12/2010, 11:47 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary (A bit long, but another worthwhile closing post to read... with some not-often-phrased-in-such-a-way explanations. I enjoyed writing it at least. Let me know what you think.) You know the "stock lever?" If not, that's the term we use to describe the common occurrence of stock prices and bond prices moving in opposite directions. Doesn't happen all the time, but in a general sense, sure. Last night we talked about both stock and bond markets closing at some pretty long term "on the fence levels" and so it was a reasonable assumption that it was up to retail sales and whatever else Friday could muster to convince stocks to go one way and bonds to go the other. I didn't have the minerals to offer a solid prediction, but simply that it could be a big day either...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 09:20 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch While benchmark Treasury yields moved slowly higher throughout the course of the week as our government auctioned debt to raise spending money, mortgage-backed securities managed to maintain a pretty consistent price range. After all was said and done and the auctions were behind us, mortgage rates were left basically unharmed, near the best levels of 2010. There was one more test to pass though: RETAIL SALES DATA. The Commerce Department released Retail Sales data at 8:30 am eastern this morning This report shows the monthly change in the total receipts at retail stores. Since consumer spending accounts for a large majority of GDP, market participants track retail sales to gauge economic growth. Last month’s report posted a 0.5% increase, a notable improvement from December’s disappointing...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 08:51 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: The Garrett Watts Report Audited financials are starting to come in, and they’re confirming what we saw all year. Top performing mortgage bankers made 90-100 bps per loan. That means, for every $100 million you closed, you should have (and could have) earned $900,000 to $1 million. If you didn’t make this much, you need to look carefully at why you didn’t. Or call us for a FOCIS-plus diagnostic to see what you can do to boost earnings per loan. The top quintile of companies we worked with over the year made over 100 bps per loan, with the top performer making 121 bps. For every $100 million they closed, they made $1.21 million. What most mortgage company Boards are somewhat clueless about is their earnings broken down into bps per loan. We see companies that did, say, $1 billion last year and earned...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 07:50 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary It was an interesting morning in the rates world. Let's start with our fearless leader, the benchmark 10 year note. In below average trading volume, yields rose marginally (at most) in the overnight session before popping higher on the heels of a much better than expected Retail Sales print at 830. After that we noticed some nibbling from real money accounts as 10s hit session price lows (yield highs). This bargain buying coupled with a short covering bid helped push yields lower ahead of the release of Consumer Sentiment survey results, which turned out to be worse than expected at 72.5 vs. forecasts for 73.6. The reading was however not far from the six month average and much improved from levels one year ago. Here is a table of the results: On the surface this data appears to be bond...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 05:51 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire Fitch Ratings is warning that the expiring homebuyer tax credits, the end of the Fed's MBS Purchase Program , and the growing maturity of various government loan modifications programs are likely to increase loss severities on distressed mortgage loans later this year. The report says that these factors as well as low interest rates and the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program have led to an improvement in both home prices and loss severities since the second quarter of 2009, but this is unlikely to continue. The $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and $6,500 credit for move-up buyers will be effectively expiring with the deadline for signed sales contracts on April 30. Buyers must complete the sale by June 30 so any drop off in sales...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 05:04 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire USDA Section 502 loans are primarily used to help low-income individuals or households purchase homes in rural areas. Funds can be used to build, repair, renovate or relocate a home, or to purchase and prepare sites, including providing water and sewage facilities. There is no required down payment. The lender must determine repayment feasibility, using ratios of repayment (gross) income to PITI and to total family debt. John Rodgers called my attention to the following bulletin released by the USDA: This message is to notify you that program funding for the Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program will likely be exhausted by the end of April, 2010 . Once funding is exhausted, the Agency will not issue Conditional Commitments “subject to receipt of appropriated funds. ” This...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 03:43 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire As reported on February 26 , Freddie Mac has decided to stop purchasing and securitizating loans utilizing the interest only payment option. Freddie's deadline for PURCHASING these loans was set as September 2010, however no application/LP approval date cut-off was provided in the bulletin. This deadline was announced yesterday in Bulletin 2010-7 Here is the verbiage from the release: Effective for mortgages with application dates on or after June 13, 2010 , and for mortgages with Freddie Mac settlements on or after September 1, 2010 we are: Retiring our Initial InterestSM Mortgage offering. Beginning June 13, Initial Interest Mortgages will not be eligible for submission or resubmission to Loan Prospector® . Plain and Simple : if you want to sell Freddie Mac an interest only loan,...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 02:46 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire The Federal Reserve reported on their weekly purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). In the week ending March 10, 2010, the Federal Reserve purchased a gross total of $29.4 billion agency MBS. In that week the Fed sold $19.4 billion mortgage-backeds (supported the roll), for a net total of $10.0 billion agency MBS purchases. While this amount is unchanged from the previous week, the broader trend of a decline in weekly purchases continues. The goal of the Federal Reserve's agency MBS program is to provide support to mortgage and housing markets and to foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally. Only fixed-rate agency MBS securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are eligible assets for the program. The program includes, but is not...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 02:42 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: Pipeline Press Don't forget to "Spring Ahead" this Sunday morning. We lose an hour of sleep. The FDIC made a rare Thursday move and shut down LibertyPointe Bank This bank catered to the Orthodox Jewish community in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and will be taken over by Valley National. For anyone hedging with securities, there's a new broker dealer in town. Well, maybe not so new, but Wells Fargo Securities , who apparently is making a market in trading MBS's, according to news sources will add Kevin Jackson to its residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS) team. Jackson is leaving Merrill Lynch Bank of America to join Wells as part of a broader move to expand that platform. Did you hear the one about the parrot and Bank of America ? A nun and a parrot walked into a branch... never mind...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 02:20 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary Retail Sales data has hit screens. It was much better than expected. Rates no likely. February, Retail Sales rose 0.3% vs. an expected decline of 0.2%vs. a revised for the worse +0.1% print in January (from +0.5%) . Excluding autos, sales rose 0.8%, crushing forecasts for a 0.1% improvement. Looking deeper into the data, percentage gains were led by the electronics/appliances category as well as food and beverage buying (snow storm help that out?). Miscellaneous store sales were up 2.5% too. Year over year, retail sales are up 3.9%. Remember how bad things were at this time last year.... Looking at the data in terms of actual dollars spent. Excluding autos...retail sales improved in every category except health care. Food and beverage and general merchandise sales were notably large, also note...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 01:06 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire Equities are higher and the dollar is weaker following positive data from Europe and ahead of key retail sales numbers at home. More than two hours before the opening bell, markets edging higher with Dow futures are up 21 points to 10,569 and the S&P 500 pointing up by 2.25 points to 1,148.25. Meantime, the dollar is slightly weaker, WTI crude oil is up 51 cents to $82.62 per barrel, and Spot Gold is up $7.93 to $1,117.43. Sentiment was boosted as Eurozone industrial production hammered expectations and jumped 1.7% in January, marking the biggest gain in more than two decades. Figures for December were also revised up. Industrial production also jumped 2.7% in Japan, also beating expectations. Back in the US, headlines are beaming that Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed, has...(read more) |
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| 3/12/2010, 12:40 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary Good Morning. Once again, rate futures prices moved modestly lower in the overnight session...albeit in below average volume (again). What is obvious to me is the 10 yr contract's failiure to break through what I have been calling "position resistance". This is the price range where the most recent high volume sell off occurred 116-24 and 116-30 I suppose it is appropriate to take some solace from the fact that 10s are not doing worse, especially when you consider that stock futures made further gains overnight. After four days of a limited data, which made it easy for traders to bake in a concessionary backup in TSY yields, the week's most important econ event is upon us: RETAIL SALES In the MBS CLOSE , MG called attention to a technical crossroads in benchmark 10s, "rate...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 11:05 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch After two dataless days and no movement in mortgage rates, action picked up yesterday. Mortgage rates opened the day lower, however, thanks to big turnout at the 10 year Treasury note auction, enchmark yields rallied and mortgage-backed security prices moved higher into the close. We sat and waited for lenders to reprice, disappointingly they never did. This isn't a surprise though, lenders are quick to take away rate sheet pricing when MBS prices are falling but really slow to pass along improvements when MBS prices are on the rise. We had a couple of scheduled economic reports that were released early enough to sway the direction of mortgage rates today. First we got Weekly Jobless Claims from the Department of Labor. This report provides three measures on the health of the labor market...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 10:25 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire Today RealtyTrac® released its February U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The RealtyTrac report shows that foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions declined 2 percent from January. A total of 308,524 properties in the United States received one of the listed notices during the month. This equates to 1 house in every 418 units. Compare that to January's ratio of 1 in every 409. That works out to a 10% month over month improvement. However, when comparing data from one year ago (Feb 2009), the ratio is still 6% worse. James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac says, "The 6 percent year-over-year increase we saw in February was the smallest annual increase we've seen since January 2006 , when we began calculating...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 10:24 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary MBS end 1 tick down at 100-29 10yr Note Yield at 3.725 S&P up 5 points, all gains late in the day 30yr Auction pressures rates early and helps out late This one's a good read, and a tangible concept to share with clients and business partners Something Epic? Let's not get too carried away... After all, we've been here plenty of times before only for the much anticipated turning point to send markets sideways--merely prolonging the "waiting for guidance." But where exactly is "here?" And why is it more epic than every other day that bonds end the day "honing in" (trading in a narrowing orbit AROUND a certain price) on key technical levels? Fortunately, the 2 day chart contains a good example of something we see fairly often, which is prices or yields...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 08:37 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary The Edge: Both MBS 4.5's and 10yr notes are UNCHANGED at the moment For MBS, that's 100-30 and for the 10yr, that's just under 3.73 Verdict on this auction cycle: undecided... waiting for retail sales tomorrow and FOMC next week The snake continues to coil, but who will it strike? When we reference the snake, that would be a chart with with converging/competing trends in a "triangle" shape. Since the line on such charts is usually predisposed to move directionally after it breaks out of the triangle. In this sense, it's like a "coiling snake" preparing to strike out in one direction or the other. As we are still in the middle of this triangle, there's no clear indication of which direction rates want to move of their own accord. With retail sales coming...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 07:40 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire Increasing the minimum down payment required for a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan from 3.5 percent to 5 percent could be a double whammy, affecting both potential homebuyers and the economy as a whole according to David H. Stevens, FHA Commissioner. At the same time, a lower loan to value ratio (LTV) by itself is not a particularly good indicator of buyer risk. In a statement prepared for a hearing Thursday afternoon by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, the Commissioner said if the agency raised the minimum down payment to 5 percent "as some have suggested," it would adversely impact the housing market recovery. The agency has conducted an evaluation of the loan files of a large sample of recent loans to identify homeowners...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 06:09 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary The previously discussed auction concession must have been sufficient because the long bond auction went very well. Overall, auction demand was well above average---2.89 bids were submitted for every one accepted by the Treasury. 82% of the auction was taken down at the high yield of 4.679% (dealer bids). I should share the auction caveat before going any further.... success was driven by a hungry bid from from direct buyers who took home a record 29.5% of the issue . This massive support offset a very weak turnout from Indirect bidders, who were awarded only 23.9%. Primary dealers got 46.4% of the $13 billion...below average Here is a recap of the results: 29-YEAR 11-MONTH BONDS YIELDS High 4.679 pct Median 4.645 pct Low 4.580 pct PRICE/ACCEPTANCES Price 99.128159 Accepted at high 82.80 pct...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 05:48 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: The Garrett Watts Report A portmanteau means a blend of two or more words and their meanings into one new word. An example is the word brunch meaning breakfast +lunch. Another is smog meaning a combination of smoke and fog. Some would consider a portmanteau a type of word morphing and we agree. Mortgage lending has had its share of portmanteaus. Over the last several years mortgage brokers who were transitioning to mortgage banking were sometimes phrased as Brankers. Branker is a morph of a mortgage banker and mortgage broker. A Branker acts and operates as a mortgage broker and doesn’t perform many functions of a mortgage banker – underwriting, doc prep and secondary market --, but does fund and sell loans in their name as a mortgage bankers. One key similarity with Bankers and Brankers is loan repurchase...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 04:37 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary The main theme in the rates market this morning has been a set up for the last Treasury auction of the week :$13 billion 30s. Results to be released at 1pm. The auction supply concession is obvious when looking at both price action outright as well as the long bond's performance relative to the rest of the yield curve. The chart below is 30 year bond prices. Notice the initial concession that was able to be built in after the Employment Situation Report was released last Friday. This theme carried over to this week...bond prices have continued to fall ahead of today's auction. Looking at the long bond's performance relative to the rest of the yield curve makes the auction concession even more obvious. 30s got their butts whipped by 2s after jobs data last Friday and the curve steepened...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 03:56 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: Pipeline Press Who says numbers aren't fun? A top muni bond analyst at Wells Fargo sent THIS to me. Numbers are fun! Sometimes time drags, and sometimes it flies. I came to this brilliant observation yesterday while waiting in the California DMV, waiting for my 15 year old daughter to obtain her driver's permit. Time flies doesn't it? On the other hand, in the mortgage business, it seems like a lifetime ago when companies were offering stated/stated 90% neg AM loans. Can anyone seriously push to have those days come back? That being said, ING notified its brokers that it raised LTV's and CLTV's, especially on Jumbo adjustable rate mortgages. US Bank's wholesale division is pushing its 1/1, 3/1, 5/1, 7/1, 10/1 ARM programs with IO options, cash out, up to $1.5 million. EverBank is "dipping...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 01:52 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary Good Morning. A nationwide strike has essentially shut down Greece. From the AP : "Thursday's strike — the second in a week — brought the country to a virtual standstill, grounding all flights and bringing public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country's debt crisis" Seems like a good way to cut the deficit doesn't it? (note sarcasm) Jobless Claims data has been released. The market was expecting 460,000 new claims and 4.49m continued claims. The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims fell to 462,000 in the week ending 3/6/2010. This is 6,000 less than the previous...(read more) |
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| 3/11/2010, 01:21 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MND NewsWire Speculation that China may have to tighten its economic policy is pulling investor sentiment lower this morning. Amid positive data on industrial production and retail sales, Chinese CPI climbed 2.7% in February, indicating that the central bank may have to take a more serious approach to slow down spending. “China is aiming for 3% inflation for all of 2010,” said Benjamin Reitzes from BMO. “Continued acceleration would make that target tough to hit and markets are concerned that this latest jump in inflation could cause Chinese officials to tighten policy further.” Reitzes called the CPI figure “somewhat troubling,” adding that it’s too early to a definitive statement that prices are about to take off. “However, with the economic numbers showing...(read more) |
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| 3/10/2010, 10:13 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: MBS Commentary This is always the question right? I mean, after all, we already know what is available on our rate sheets at the moment, but the most valuable question always asks for tomorrow's MBS prices today. Forgetting for a moment that you'll usually LOSE more money thinking that way than you'll make, let's suspend GUTFLOP and see if we have any hints at tomorrow's action according to today's events. First, the fundamental arguments... What do we know? 10yr auction built up a decent concession going in and stopped pretty much on the screws (meaning that rates went up ahead of the auction, then we saw strong demand at those rates) Strong demand AT THOSE RATES is evidenced by the relatively high "offers accepted at high" metric from the auction, meaning that most of the...(read more) |
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| 3/10/2010, 09:48 PM by Mortgage News Daily |
Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch Much like Monday, yesterday was a data-less day in the marketplace, leaving me at a loss for words and new guidance. Mortgage-backed securities prices did managed to move higher following a very strong 3 year Treasury debt auction, unfortunately MBS price appreciations were not strong enough to warrant reprices for the better and lenders left mortgage rates unchanged on the day. The economic calendar picked up today, but not much. This morning the Mortgage Bankers Association released their Weekly Loan Applications Index. The MBA survey covers over 50 percent of all US residential mortgage loan applications taken by mortgage bankers, commercial banks, and thrifts. The data gives economists a look into consumer demand for mortgage loans. A rising trend of mortgage applications indicates an increase...(read more) |
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