Hunton Andrews Kurth explores what makes an attractive shell entity.

The company missed analysts’ quarterly forecasts on operating earnings per share due to higher mortgage servicing rights amortization and operating expenses.

Treasuries gained for a sixth straight session. Morgan Stanley say the 10-year has scope to fall back below 4% if the prevailing view on the Fed shifts.

Bonds Can Seemingly Do No Wrong

Another day, another example of bonds ignoring the potentially negative cues while continuing to react from the positive ones. Correlation may not be causality, but stock losses have appeared to help facilitate bond buying on multiple occasions since last Friday. Today brought another example with stocks start to falter around 12:30ET following headlines regarding a 25% tariff rate on European imports. Even as stocks have moved off the lows heading into after hours trading, bond yields didn’t follow.  That leaves us at another “best since early December” level in both Treasuries and MBS.

Econ Data / Events

New Home Sales

657k vs 680k f’cast, 698k prev

Market Movement Recap

09:48 AM Slow, sideways morning so far.  MBS unchanged and 10yr up 0.2bps at 4.3

12:43 PM Best levels of the day with MBS up 1 tick (.03) and 10yr down 2.3bps at 4.274

03:28 PM New best levels.  MBS up 5 ticks (.16) and 10yr down 5.1bps at 4.246

While the House passed President Trump’s budget resolution, the industry is abuzz about the TV at HUD’s headquarters showing an AI video of Donald Trump… There are some shifty IT folks out there. Meanwhile, focusing on reality, borrower psychology is a topic here at the Northeast Mortgage Summit, and who knows more about it, you or the CFO of Home Depot? Renovation and HELOC specialists took note that Home Depot’s chief financial officer said people are “moving on” from today’s high mortgage rates and have started investing more in their homes. HD reported strong fourth-quarter results, although CEO Ted Decker said consumers are still reluctant to make larger remodeling investments. There are plenty in our biz who tell me that people may start to view today’s mortgage rates as normal, especially when compared to historic rates. (By the way, speaking of Home Depot, Indiana’s Carol K. sent over a website that shows where corporations donate their money; you can see where Home Depot’s has gone lately.) (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Sagent. Sagent brings the modern experience customers now expect from loan originations to loan servicing, where lifetime customer relationships are managed and grown. Hear an interview with Curinos’ Ken Flaherty on home equity lending, from origination data to borrower sentiment.) Lender and Broker Products and Services What’s an “energy-integrated” mortgage? Meet Ben Miller, Matt Hansen, and Cole Bestgen at the Wynn to find out. Ben and Matt reshaped the mortgage landscape when they founded SimpleNexus. Now they’ve hooked up with Arcasa CEO Cole Bestgen to help lenders close more loans by integrating solar into the mortgage process in a way that ACTUALLY makes sense. From interest-rate buydowns to generous tax credits to unlocking down payment assistance programs, Arcasa turns solar into your secret weapon for structuring creative deals that are efficient to originate and investor-friendly. See how this approach benefits both homebuyers and loan officers by meeting with Arcasa at the Wynn Las Vegas March 10-12. Spots are limited. Reserve your meeting now.

While the economic calendar may look a little busy today, there are, once again, no big ticket market movers in play.  The last time data had an impact was last week.  Since then, the notion of general concern over the economic outlook has helped bonds. Looked at another way, bond gains have frequently coincided with stock losses. As such, we might be concerned when/if stocks bounce higher. But on each of the past two sessions, such bounces have failed to sow fear among bond traders, and the same pattern is repeating this morning.

Mortgage rates are directly connected to the bond market, and bonds can seemingly do no wrong over the past week.  Specifically, demand for bonds has been strong and steady.  Higher demand begets higher prices and, when it comes to bonds, higher prices result in lower rates. On several occasions since last Friday, we’ve seen obvious examples of investors moving money out of stocks and into bonds.  The risk there is that bonds/rates would bounce back in the other direction if stocks manage to do the same.  But so far, the moderate attempts at recovery in the stock market have  not spilled over into the bond market.  In other words, rates have held their gains very well, even at times when it seemed like stocks might be trying to stage a recovery. Today didn’t see nearly as much movement as several of the past few days, but rates managed to start out right in line with yesterday’s levels.  By the early afternoon, bonds had improved enough for the average lender to offer a modest mid-day improvement. The result is the lowest average 30yr fixed rate since December 10th. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

In a forum Tuesday, Senate Democrats railed against President Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as anti-consumer and illegal.

Recent housing trends more favorable to buyers will ease some of the pressure for higher down payments in order to secure a winning bid, Redfin finds.

The Justice Department said in a legal brief that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to exist, but said instead that the agency will have fewer employees and a reduced budget under the Trump administration.