The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which strips out the volatile food and energy components, increased 0.4% from December, data out Thursday showed. From a year ago, it advanced 2.8%. Economists consider this to be a better gauge of underlying inflation than the overall index.

The Old Dominion State has joined 30 others with pending or existing legal protections against the real estate agreements, which affect the right to sell.

But a part of the proposal getting mixed reviews extends a risk sharing program that provides capital to housing finance agencies for multifamily loans.

A mixed-race couple claims a “whitewashed” valuation in 2023 returned a price 39% higher than the depository-approved result a year earlier.

Technology and compliance expert Anne Marie Pippin will help lead the division of conservatorship, oversight and readiness, while Anju Vajja takes on a similar position on the research team.

It Took a Village (Of Econ Data)

Bonds began the day in weaker territory but rallied after the 8:30am econ data.  This wasn’t exclusively a function of Core PCE hitting its forecast, but also drew strength from the higher continued claims number.  Just over an hour later, Chicago PMI came in noticeably weaker and added to the rally.  Gains slowly evaporated throughout the day in a linear trend.  While this left a microscopic improvement on the day it did nothing to push rates/yields out of their exceptionally narrow, prevailing trend.

Econ Data / Events

Jobless Claims

215k vs 210k f’cast, 202k prev

Continued Claims

1905k vs 1874k f’cast, 1860k prev

Core PCE m/m

0.4 vs 0.4 f’cast, 0.2 prev

Core PCE y/y

2.8 vs 2.8 f’cast, 2.9 prev

Chicago PMI

44 vs 48 f’cast, 46 prev

Market Movement Recap

08:54 AM Moderately weaker overnight, but erasing losses after data. 10yr nearly unchanged at 4.266.  MBS down only 1 tick (0.03).

09:52 AM Additional gains after Chicago PMI.  10yr down 1.8bps at 4.246.  MBS up 2 ticks (.06).

01:27 PM Off the best levels, but still stronger.  MBS up 3 ticks (.09) and 10yr down 1.2bps at 4.252.

03:07 PM some weakness heading into 3pm close (month-end).  Still barely positive with MBS up 1 tick (.03) and 10yr down half a bp at 4.259.

04:48 PM Briefly weaker at 4pm, but recovering back in line with the levels from the previous update.

In the bigger picture, mortgage rates would still be best described as “trending gently higher,” but in the shorter term, today was a victory.  The average lender moved from quoting conventional 30yr fixed rates near 3 month highs yesterday to the lowest levels of the week today.  The disclaimer is that this says more about the narrowness of the recent range than the ground covered. Another disclaimer is that you may well encounter mortgage rate headlines that say something completely different today.  This would almost certainly be due to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey number rising to the highest levels in more than 2 months.  Freddie’s survey is an average of the 5 days ending yesterday, nor does it account for points or a few other idiosyncrasies that can cause it to deviate from the reality in the trenches.   That reality is a conventional 30yr fixed rate that remains in the low 7% range for top tier scenarios.  If someone were to pay discount points or receive a relatively more aggressive quote, the high 6% range isn’t out of the question.  It’s just not “average.”  Today’s improvement was ostensibly driven by the bond market’s reaction to hotly anticipated inflation data.  There is indeed a case to be made that the as-expected reading on PCE inflation helped rates recover today, but other economic data was also helpful (jobless claims and Chicago PMI). Ultimately, today’s data is not what the market is truly waiting for.  The most important reports hit next week, culminating with Friday’s big jobs report.  The following week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) is at least as important.  More than anything, those two reports will shape the dialogue in financial markets and the Fed meeting that takes place the week after CPI.

Today’s most hotly anticipated data was undoubtedly PCE inflation for January.  In fact, this is the report that became the subject of our focus and anticipation immediately following the last CPI on Feb 13.  That said, it only deserved focus because it was the best stop-gap data option between CPI and the next NFP on March 8th.  Today, it is proving its merit… maybe.  It’s actually hard to assign it too much credit for leading a reversal of overnight weakness because a big jump in continued jobless claims (highest since a spike in November that looked like an outlier at the time) arguably deserves some credit.  We even had a noticeable reaction to Chicago PMI later in the morning.  

One reason for giving Jobless Claims closer consideration is that today’s PCE data ran 10-30 seconds late depending on traders’ preferred delivery platform.  That allowed us to see the Claims data having an impact in a vacuum during that time, and a majority of the initial gains were already in by the time we saw PCE come through.  The additional drop in yields on the Chicago PMI data is possible evidence that the market is hungry for economically downbeat data.  It’s a bit more pronounced than we’re used to seeing for this report, and it would be a surprise to see as much selling if today’s number had beaten the forecast by as much as it missed.

The mortgage lender said the hack was caused by a third-party’s vulnerability.

At issue is whether convenience fees for last-minute payments are governed by the Federal Debt Collection Practice Act, and if so, when they should be disclosed.