The former management and program analyst, working three jobs, submitted time sheets showing over 24 hours of work per day, prosecutors said.

In some California markets, a household would need a six-figure raise to afford monthly payments on a typical home, new Zillow research found.

The Financial Technology Association — which had been granted the right to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s open banking rule after the bureau declined to defend it — filed a motion Sunday to preserve the rule.

“The seminar ‘How to avoid frauds’ is canceled. Tickets are non-refundable.” Mortgage fraud is alive and well in the United States. In Utah, Kouri Richins, 35, the Kamas mother who is accused of killing her husband and writing a children’s book about grief is facing 26 new felony charges, including five counts of mortgage fraud. It certainly is not confined to the U.S.: In Canada (remember Canada, whose citizens used to visit the U.S.?), a tragic tale unfolded with lost money and death. In lighter legal and regulatory news, the recent MBA Hawai’i annual conference attracts well-known industry experts, and a few weeks ago attendees heard Mitch Kider (Chairman and Managing Partner of Weiner Brodsky Kider PC), Brian Levy (Of Counsel to Katten & Temple, LLP and author of Mortgage Musings), and Bob Niemi, CMB (Director of Government Affairs at WBK) discuss regulatory and compliance issues. Lenders and vendors should know what they and other compliance people are watching (see below). (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Figure, which is shaking up the lending world with their five-day HELOC, offering borrower approvals in as little as five minutes and funding in five days. Figure has hundreds of partners in the banking, CU, home improvement, and (of course) IMB space embedding their technology, giving borrowers an experience they will rave about. Today’s has an interview with Figure’s Michael Tannenbaum on stable coins, the latest happenings at Figure, and product proliferation in the mortgage industry as a result of borrower and investor demand.)

April 3rd and 4th saw the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rates well into the “mid 6’s.”  Many lenders were able to quote 6.5% at the time.  Just a few days ago, we noted there was still a ways to go before breaking below those early April levels, but the past few days have taken us within striking distance.  The average lender is now only 0.07% higher than they were on April 4th and that’s a gap that can be traversed in as little as one day under the right circumstances. If it is destined to be traversed in the near feature, it would likely be due to exceptional weakness in the forthcoming economic data–especially Thursday’s big jobs report.  Conversely, if this week’s economic data surprises to the upside, it would likely coincide with rates bouncing here and headline back into the recent range. And lastly, if this week’s data doesn’t cast a decisive vote in either direction, next week’s inflation reports could easily break the tie. The most interesting aspect of today’s movement was the movement itself.  It didn’t happen due to any interesting data or news headlines.  Both stocks and bonds (which dictate rates) improved as traders moved portfolios into position for the end of the month/quarter.  This can cause market movement independent of economic data/news. 

Steady Gains in the PM Hours

It’s common to see the effects of month/quarter-end trading most prominently in the PM hours and today’s quarter-end session was no exception. A glut of bond buying just after 12:30pm got the part started and yields bottomed out just before the 4pm NYSE close.  While 4pm is a time that’s associated with stocks, it has come to be the larger of the two closing bells for the bond market on month/quarter-end days for a variety of reasons (de-emphasis of CME pit over the years, increased prevalence of ETF trading, large portfolio rebalancing that involves both stock/bond ETFs, thus arguing for one unified closing mark time). From here, econ data should take the wheel although it’s always possible to see some new-month positions have an impact on the first day of a new month. 

Econ Data / Events

Chicago PMI

40.4 vs 43.0 f’cast, 40.5 prev

Market Movement Recap

09:12 AM Modestly stronger overnight with gains at the start of EU trading.  MBS up 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr down 1.7bps at 4.264

11:49 AM Very calm still.  MBS up 1 tick (.03) and 10yr down 1.8bps at 4.263

01:28 PM Month-end buying picking up a bit.  10yr down 4.8bps at 4.234.  MBS up an eighth.

04:33 PM Strong month-end move into the close.  MBS up almost a quarter point and 10yr down 4.8bps at 4.233

Month/quarter end trading is a somewhat esoteric and potentially frustrating concept for the typical market watcher because it seemingly violates the notion that market move for logical underlying reasons.  To be fair, month-end volatility also has logical underlying reasons, but the logic requires a fairly deep dive (which is why we have a primer on the topic). Today’s only econ data is/was Chicago PMI which has already come and gone with no fanfare.  Trading levels are best described as sideways from Friday and the intraday range, far narrower.  If month-end volatility picks up, it would tend to be in the PM hours–especially in the 2pm-4pm ET time frame.

The largest U.S. banks took less of a capital hit under the Federal Reserve’s hypothetical stress scenario than they did last year, but averaging the two sets of results could impact next year’s regulatory requirements.

This transaction for 230 rental units follows a March $10 million affordable housing investment in Nevada Housing Division Mortgage Revenue Bonds.

Rising insurance costs and stricter rules threaten condo affordability, but balanced reforms can preserve access, according to a member of the Community Home Lenders of America.