The sale of SIMPL marked a natural evolution of the software platform that will allow it to reach its full potential, one of its developers said.

President Trump and Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., visited the Federal Reserve Board headquarters Thursday afternoon to inspect ongoing renovations whose cost overruns have heightened scrutiny of Fed chair Jerome Powell.

The case pitted high-profile senior-tranche investors like PIMCO against junior bondholders the interpretation of contracts that predated later policy changes.

Habib’s placement on the Fannie Mae board comes after he criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in a Linkedin post.

July 24… While much of the nation swelters, if you live in Utah, it’s Pie and Beer Day. Uh, I mean, Pioneer Day. The average home in Utah now costs $517,000, a 1 percent increase from last year, per this article and very manageable. If this article (showing state-level fraud rankings) is to be believed, Utah has steered clear of a high mortgage scam ranking. Good job! For more good news, LOs are watching nationwide stats and trends for marketing purposes. Today will be another episode of The Big Picture at 3PM ET (click here to register) sponsored by Depth and featuring Nikki Bialka who oversees affordable & CRA lending for Fifth Third Bank. Thank you to Mark W. who reminded me that approximately 39 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds in the U.S. lived with their parents, according to a post citing OECD data. According to Fortune, citing a recently published Goldman Sachs note, the share of U.S. homeowners without a mortgage rose from 33% in 2010 to 40% in 2023. Assuming there are 86 million homes nationwide, the outlet estimates more than 30 million are now owned free and clear. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s podcasts are sponsored by Wholesale Mortgage Direct (WMD), whose mission is to deliver high demand, innovative products unique to the wholesale industry, including MyEQNow, which is one-of-a-kind TraDigital HELOC platform. WMD is your trusted partner for innovative HELOC, NonQM and/or Reverse options. Today’s has an interview Wholesale Mortgage Direct’s Denis Kelly on the evolving wholesale channel and HELOC landscape, the rise of digital lending, investor, and borrower demand in underserved markets, and how the MyEQNow platform is reshaping access with innovative, data-light solutions.)

After falling for 5 straight days leading into Tuesday, mortgage rates have now moved slightly higher on each of the past two days. As was the case with the improvement, the bounce back has been exceedingly modest in its pace. In fact, most borrowers will be seeing the same rates today vs last week with only minor changes in upfront costs. Today was the only day of the present week with any meaningful economic data. This is relevant because rates are based on bonds and economic data is a key source of motivation for bond movement, but it depends on the data in question.  For instance, next week’s big jobs report on Friday is guaranteed to result in some of the highest-volume bond market trading of the month.  It also has a higher chance than any other scheduled report to cause a big move in one direction or the other.  Contrast that to this week’s economic calendar and it’s a completely different story.  Even if we added every scheduled event together, it still wouldn’t surpass next week’s jobs report in terms of potential rate impact. This morning’s Jobless Claims report (NOT the same as next week’s much more important jobs report) was the first time this week that bonds even visibly reacted to data.   Jobless Claims were lower than expected. A stronger labor market tends to coincide with higher rates, all else equal. In today’s case, it made for a slight bump, but no major drama. After bottoming out on July 1st and bouncing higher through July 8th, rates have generally been sideways.   [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Reasonably Resilient After Data-Driven Selling

This morning’s Jobless Claims report was the week’s most relevant economic report apart from the S&P PMI data that came out just over an hour later.  As it happened, Claims garnered the only obvious response, pushing yields slightly higher in addition to the modest weakness seen in the overnight session. Bonds were able to push back in a friendlier direction at the 9:30am NYSE open–something they’ve done on 3 out of 4 days this week.  It wasn’t quite enough to turn a red day green, but with MBS ending down only 2 ticks (.06), some might say it was close enough for government work.

Econ Data / Events

Jobless Claims

217k vs 227k f’cast, 221k prev

Continued Claims

1955k vs 1960k f’cast, 1951k prev

S&P Manufacturing PMI

49.5 vs 52.6 f’cast, 52.0 prev

S&P Services PMI

55.2 vs 53.0 f’cast, 52.9 prev

New Home Sales

627k vs 650k f’cast, 623k prev

Market Movement Recap

09:16 AM Some selling before and after jobless claims.  MBS down 7 ticks (.23) and 10yr up 5.3bps at 4.438

10:09 AM decent recovery at 9:30am NYSE open and no major reaction to S&P PMI data.  MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 2.7bps at 4.411

01:01 PM MBS down only 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 1.9bps at 4.403

03:39 PM Fading a bit now.  MBS down 5 ticks (.16) and 10yr up 3.3bps at 4.417

Jobless claims data continues to defy a majority of other labor market metrics in showing a remarkable lack of any signs of softening.  In fact, the 4 week average is now at a 13 week low.  While this isn’t the most highly consequential econ data, it’s one of this week’s only actionable reports. As such, bonds are undergoing a small but negative reaction, adding to moderate overnight weakness.

The end of VA foreclosure moratorium is behind a rise in auctions, but bidder hesitancy suggests home prices could fall further.

The agreement with D2 Asset Management doubles the firm’s previous commitment to Unlock, as current economic trends provide momentum for the growing sector.