The government-sponsored enterprise is retiring a technology platform used for loan workout reporting and giving mortgage companies a deadline for leaving it.

The move was necessary for Dark Matter in order for it to align the size of its workforce with current mortgage market realities, CEO Sean Dugan said.

The title insurance industry, highly dependent on mortgage origination volume, recovered after watching volume fall 31% in 2023 and 16% in 2022.

Today’s Gains Help Us Understand Yesterday’s Losses

Wednesday’s weakness was severely lacking in the scapegoat department. In other words, there were not big, obvious justifications for the spike in bond yields. Today’s rally had a suggestion: perhaps the market was nervous about a potential update to the inflation framework in today’s Powell speech.  After all, it was the previous inflation framework update in 2020 (which basically concluded that rates could stay “lower for longer,” even if inflation was elevated) that was responsible for a lot of drama over the past 3 years. Although the 8:30am economic data helped a bit, most of today’s gains followed the 8:40am Powell speech.  The absence of stock losses makes the Powell explanation all the more plausible (i.e. if bonds were rallying on weak data, we’d expect to see stocks lose some ground, and they didn’t).

Econ Data / Events

Retail Sales

0.1 vs 0.0 f’cast

Retail Sales Control Group

-0.2 vs 0.3 f’cast, 0.5 prev

Core PPI Monthly

-0.4 vs 0.3 f’cast, 0.4 prev

Core PPI Annual

3.1 vs 3.1 f’cast, 4.0 prev
big revision from 3.3 last month

Jobless Claims

229k vs 229k

Philly Fed 

-4 vs -11 f’cast, -26.4 prev

Market Movement Recap

09:28 AM Modestly stronger overnight and catching a “no whammies” bid early.  MBS up 9 ticks (.28) and 10yr yield down 6 bps at 4.475

12:10 PM Best levels of the day with MBS up nearly half a point and 10yr down 8.5bps at 4.45

02:59 PM Still near best levels.  MBS up 3/8ths and 10yr down 8bps at 4.456

Houses in 85% of the nation’s metropolitan areas are considered overvalued, with more than half of those by 10% or above, Fitch Ratings found.

The closely watched case centers on bank allegations the government corporation promised certain reverse-mortgage assets in return for funding then reneged.

The plaintiff is asking for a Seattle federal court to postpone the Redfin shareholder vote, scheduled for June 4, until the company disseminates supplemental information curing the alleged omissions in the proxy filing.

US corporations with over a trillion in assets snapped up an unprecedented amount of short-term Treasuries when President Donald Trump announced a 90-day delay for most of his “Liberation Day” tariffs, according to Clearwater Analytics.

The Financial Technology Association will now defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s open banking rule after the Trump administration sided with banks that sued the agency.

Another “Just Because” Sell Off

This is getting old…  and unfortunately, more prevalent. The bond market has been offering up more and more examples of reasonably brisk changes in yields without any obvious catalysts. This forces market watchers to concoct narratives to fit the price action (i.e. to say things that wouldn’t be said if the mystery move was a rally). In other words, guesses and generalizations are the name of the game. What we do know is that a broad rotation out of bonds and into stocks is underway, even if stocks weren’t a good example of that today. We know there were some headlines regarding potential Korea/Japan trade deals in the works. And we know the bond market isn’t thrilled with the potential Treasury issuance implications associated with congressional budget headlines. All that having been said, the reality is probably significantly more complicated and boring than this small collection of usual suspects. 

Market Movement Recap

10:06 AM Modestly weaker overnight and a bit weaker so far.  MBS down almost an eighth and 10yr up 2bps at 4.49

12:29 PM More weakness.  MBS down just over a quarter point and 10yr up 5bps at 4.519

02:26 PM Flat at weakest levels.  MBS down 9 ticks (.28) and 10yr up 5.3bps at 4.522

03:11 PM Weaker at the 3pm CME close.  MBS down 11 ticks (.34) and 10yr up 6.5bps at 4.534