Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told the House Budget Committee Wednesday that the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund is still a target for elimination by the administration because it promotes “woke” ideology.

Dozens of plaintiffs say they still haven’t received a full explanation over the mass termination announced last April by FHFA Director Bill Pulte.

FundingShield’s latest report notes the improvement in remediation efforts among lenders, but closing protection lenders remain a key source of file problems.

Marketing services firm LeadPoint said it thought it had gained compliance after Connecticut officials issued a prior consent order and penalty in 2020.

President Donald Trump said he would fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell if he does not resign after his term as head of the central bank ends in May. Trump made a similar threat against Fed Gov. Lisa Cook before attempting to fire her last August.

According to Curinos’ proprietary application index, March 2026 funded mortgage volume increased 35 percent y-o-y and increased 30 percent m-o-m. How did your company stack up? Curinos calculates that refinance and purchase rates were 5-6 basis points lower m-o-m and about 73 basis points y-o-y. (Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures and drills into this data further here.) (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are Sponsored by Truework. Replace costly, error-prone verification waterfalls with a single, fully automated VOIE solution that delivers faster, more accurate, GSE-ready reports. So, your team can close more loans with less effort and lower cost. Today’s has an interview with Evergreen Home Loans’ Tamra Rieger on leadership, building teams, and winning business in the current rate environment.) Products, Services, and Software for Brokers and Lenders Missed milestones. Late valuations. Files are stuck between teams and third-party providers. Sound familiar? Default servicing depends on a network of third parties, but most organizations still rely on emails, status calls, and manually accessing provider systems for data entry and status updates to keep things moving. The result: delays, rework, and growing operational risk. In our latest blog, “Stop Managing Service Providers. Start Orchestrating Outcomes,” Clarifire challenges conventional wisdom, arguing the issue isn’t provider performance, but what happens when workflow breaks at the boundary between your team and your outside partners. The blog outlines how a workflow orchestration approach brings structure, visibility, and control across the entire default lifecycle, not just the parts your internal team touches. If you’re feeling the strain of manual efforts and managing service providers to keep timelines intact, this blog is worth reading.

On Tuesday, the average top-tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate hit the lowest level in exactly 4 weeks. If you’re not interested in splitting hairs, today’s rates are essentially the same. Although our official average is 0.01% higher, that’s such a small change that many of today’s rate quotes will look the same as yesterday’s.  In the bigger picture, these rates are about halfway between the highs seen in late March and the lowest rates in more than 3 years seen at the end of February. The bond market (which dictates rates) remains focused on developments in the Iran war, but there’s an ever-higher bar for relevant news. At this point the average war update is not having a noticeable impact. It will take a material change in the status of the war and a clear response in energy prices to catch the bond market’s attention.

Very Small Token Pull-Back

Nothing really happened on Wednesday as far as the bond market was concerned. Yields were technically a few bps higher thus preserving the phenomenon of rally momentum being limited to 48-hour windows since the start of the Iran war. Despite a barrage of war-related headlines, there was remarkably light volatility in oil prices. Markets seem to be waiting on truly momentous developments (such as a major resumption of hostilities or a confirmed/permanent ceasefire). In the meantime, stocks and bonds both did their own thing today without any of the recently typical correlation to oil prices.

Econ Data / Events

Import prices mm (Mar)

0.8% vs 2% f’cast, 1.3% prev

NY Fed Manufacturing (Apr)

11.00 vs -0.5 f’cast, -0.20 prev

NAHB Builder Confidence

34 vs 37 f’cast, 38 prev

Market Movement Recap

08:46 AM Modestly weaker overnight, partly following oil.  MBS down 3 ticks (.09) and 10yr up 1.8bps at 4.268

12:55 PM Weaker into the noon hour, but stabilizing now. MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 3.5bps at 4.284

02:34 PM little-changed since last update. MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 3.1bps at 4.281

Markets have plenty of war-related headlines to digest at any given moment these days. And while some of those headlines have been the biggest market movers of the month, traders are increasingly focusing on the examples that speak to the biggest-picture changes. Specifically, markets aren’t as interested in Wayne and Garth saying “game on” and “game off,” but rather, the actual moment that they pack up their sticks and nets and stop playing street hockey for the day (i.e. an announcement that the war is fully over and Hormuz is fully re-opened). In the meantime, the lesser headlines may add some slight 2-way volatility, but there are no obvious examples of that so far today (despite hundreds of potential opportunities). Bonds are taking the morning to consolidate the past 2 days of gains with a modest pull-back against a backdrop void of high consequence econ data. 

Large loan balances are increasingly common in non-QM and HELOC securitizations, bringing faster prepayments and higher delinquency risks, Bank of America Securities research shows.