Decent Data and Palatable Powell
Decent Data and Palatable Powell Bonds managed modest to moderate gains after digesting all of the morning's economic data and events. None of the reports were too exciting and one might conclude that traders were slightly more interested in buying bonds regardless of the data. Yields flat-lined in stronger territory ahead of the Fed. ...
Mortgage Rates Move Lower After Fed Announcement
Wednesday brought a full schedule of events and data for the bond market to digest and bonds dictate day to day changes in mortgage rates. The morning's data was perfectly palatable, resulting in modest strength heading into the afternoon's Fed announcement. Contrary to impression given by many news headlines on Fed day, there is rarely any significance to the Fed's actual decision to hike/...
Old vs New Fed Statement With Changes Highlighted
Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding continued to expand at a solid pace. Job gains have remained strong, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation has eased over the past year but remains elevated. In recent months, there has been a lack of further progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent inflation objective. The Committee seeks to achieve max...
TPO, Market Analysis, VOE, Real Estate Search Tools; GSE and USDA News
“I named my dog ‘5 Miles’ so I can tell people I walk 5 Miles every day.” This morning, I head to Yosemite National Park for some camping, hiking, and biking. National parks receive 325 million visits a year, about 4 million of which are Yosemite’s compared to top U.S. sites like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, both with over 15 million. While we’re...
ARM Loan Share Rises as Borrowers Seek Affordability
Rising interest rates continue to constrain mortgage borrowing. The Mortgage Bankers Association says its Market Composite Index, a measure of loan application volume, decreased 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.4 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 3.0 percent from the previous week ...
ADP and Treasury Refunding Announcement Do No Harm
Bonds were roughly unchanged overnight, but began to improve modestly after the ADP data. Considering the numbers were higher than expected, that may be more of a relief bid, or even "new month" trading (8:15am is the time of the release and 8:20am is CME open that frequently sees increased volume).All that having been said, ADP is no longer big business when it comes to market movement.&nbs...
More Ammo For Unfriendly Fed, But Data is at Least as Important
More Ammo For a Hawkish Fed, But Data is at Least as Important Bonds began the day flat but lost ground quickly after ECI came in higher than expected. This is the latest in a string of unfriendly data for the bond market. It proves additional ammo for the Fed to table the notion of rate cuts in 2024--something that Powell had already mentioned...
Mortgage Rates Back Up And Over 7.5%
A mortgage rate is highly subjective and can vary for a variety of reasons. A news story that provides an outright level like 7.5% requires context and qualification. Some online advertisements (especially among builders) could still be showing rates in the high 6's. Some borrowers will be seeing rates of 7.625 or higher. Loans with less than 25% down will have higher and ...
More Data, More Inflation, More Weakness in Bonds
Steering clear of unfriendly economic data has been an increasingly challenging task for the bond market in April. While it might be an overstatement to say we're going out with a bang, today's Employment Cost Index (ECI) is at least a loud pop. ECI--a measure of labor costs and compensation (including benefits)--is not a report that had been on the trader radar as a big ticket market ...
Home Prices Apparently Don't Care About High Rates
Home price increases continued to accelerate in February even as interest rates also moved higher. Both the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices and the Housing Market Index (HMI) produced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) showed annual price growth in the 7 percent range. Case-Shiller’s U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a non-sea...