Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp and Citigroup will streamline borrower requests for an additional 90-day forbearance, allowing verbal applications.

Although some of the cohort surveyed were flush with savings, others admitted having precarious debt situations and steadfast attitudes toward luxury purchases.

Annual home-price appreciation ended last year at 0.7%, the smallest calendar-year increase since 2011, when prices dropped 2.9%, according to ICE.

A housing official renewed his call for credit bureaus to address lenders’ concerns. Low pull-through magnifies a cost that’s small relative to others.

The deal still faces a lawsuit from activist investor HoldCo Asset Management, which contends that Comerica didn’t properly shop itself before agreeing to sell to Fifth Third.

Ending Near Unchanged Levels After Early Head Fake

Trading volumes confirm that bonds are 100% back in action, but after this morning’s selling pressure proved to be a head fake, that volume hasn’t translated to any meaningful momentum.  This isn’t too hard to accept considering the absence of big-ticket econ data. Things change on Wednesday with the release of ADP, JOLTS, and ISM. This is our first chance to see some actual data-driven volatility in several weeks.

Econ Data / Events

S&P Global Composite PMI (Dec)

52.7 vs 53.0 f’cast, 54.2 prev

S&P Global Services PMI (Dec)

52.5 vs 52.9 f’cast, 54.1 prev

Market Movement Recap

09:43 AM Modestly weaker overnight and sideways so far. MBS down 2 ticks and 10yr up 1.2bps at 4.176

10:37 AM Weakest levels of the day on defense spending comments.  MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 2.4bps at 4.187

01:27 PM Bouncing back now. MBS unchanged and 10yr up 1.6bps at 4.179

03:25 PM Holding sideways near unchanged levels in MBS, currently down 1 tick (.03). 10yr yields up 1.1bps at 4.174

Mortgage rates have been effectively unchanged for 5 straight days now. During that time, the MND 30yr fixed rate index hasn’t moved by more than 0.01%. The average borrower would see almost exactly the same terms on any of these days. The absence of volatility isn’t much of a surprise given the time of year and the lack of important economic data. But that changes tomorrow with the release of two labor market reports and ISM’s service sector report. Individually, none of these are as heavy hitting as Friday’s forthcoming jobs report, but if they all sing a similar tune, it could definitely get rates moving (for better or worse).  Specifically, if the data is stronger, it would likely push rates higher and vice versa.

As it turns out, not everyone has a loan on their house. In fact, 40 percent of U.S. homes don’t have a mortgage, per the Census Bureau. Should I repeat that? 40%. (Here’s a nice map with state-level information.) What are you, or your company, doing about it? Are you even seeing those potential clients in your database? Regarding new homes… Let’s see, if we’re building 1.5 million housing units a year, and we’re short 6 million housing units, that’s… let’s see… carry the 1… 4 years. Oh, and during that time, housing stock is destroyed by floods, winds, fires, earthquakes… Any other questions? Meanwhile, long gone are the days of the phone “ringing off the hook”: the pandemic was nearly six years ago, and with it, 30-year rates in the 3s. Industry pundits will tell you that there are still too many lenders and too many LOs given where volume (in units) will be this year. And if you get the deal, it will be with low margins. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s are sponsored by Polly. Polly operates the industry’s only vertically integrated capital markets platform, purpose-built to maximize profitability through precision cost reduction, margin expansion, and real-time, loan-level attribution and profitability analysis. Today’s has a dark interview with Johns Hopkins’ Dan Ye on how 90 percent of human capital will be replaced in the next 10 years through AI, and how you can potentially ward off the impending doom.) Products, Programs, and Software for Lenders

A range trading theme has dominated the bond market since the most recent high yield on December 10th and the most recent low the following day. 100% of trading since then has fallen inside those boundaries (4.10-4.20% in terms of 10yr yields). Even though volume has made a resounding post-holiday return, there’s little for market watchers to do until we see a breakout. Wednesday and Friday’s econ data continue to be the best bets as far as catalysts go.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods attributes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolio growth for the narrower spreads, but other reasons include lower volatility.