Certain borrowers cut off from help due to the market’s elevated equity levels and rates may fare better under coming changes made at the direction of the FHFA.

The title insurance giant was one of several major mortgage players to suffer a hack late last year.

Following the closing of the transaction in the third quarter, Michael Isaacs, the CEO of GO Mortgage, will take the helm of the combined company.

Data Driven Rally, But Next Week’s Data is More Important

By the end of this holiday-shortened week, bonds didn’t quite manage to completely erase the damage done during the first half, but they came close enough to help balance the near term outlook.  Credit goes to the slightly lower reading in Core PCE for the bulk of the AM rally.  But Chicago PMI didn’t hurt, falling to the lowest levels in more than a decade apart from the initial covid lockdown. Bonds didn’t rally for much longer after that and then spent the rest of the day in a sideways, narrow range, just above the 4.50% technical level.  As big as this week’s apparent volatility may have been, next week’s potential is much bigger as it brings the typical combo of events seen during the 1st week of every month (ISMs, JOLTS, ADP, NFP).

Econ Data / Events

Core PCE m/m

0.2 vs 0.3 f’cast

Core PCE  y/y

2.8 vs 2.8 f’cast/prev

Chicago PMI

35.4 vs 41.0 f’cast, 37.9 prev

Market Movement Recap

08:58 AM Stronger after PCE data.  MBS up 5 ticks (.16) and 10yr down 4.4bps at 4.509

10:03 AM Additional gains after Chicago PMI with MBS up 7 ticks (.22) and 10yr down 6.1bps at 4.491

01:11 PM MBS an eighth off best levels but still up 3 ticks (.09) on the day.  10yr still down 4.1bps at 4.511 but up from lows of 4.49.

02:54 PM Weakest levels of the afternoon with MBS up only 1 tick (.030).  10yr still down 3.9bps at 4.513

How is it that there are only three weeks until the summer solstice? Three more weeks of the amount of daylight increasing in the Northern Hemisphere, and then, if you want more sun time, head to the Southern half of the globe. If you think presidential administrations or Federal Reserves eliminate business cycles, they don’t. If your business model is based on lower rates, don’t look at this graph from the Federal Reserve. If you want some insight into builder business and builder associations, today’s “Rundown” has Christy Beck, Corporate Director of Sales and Marketing for Caruso Homes and the current President of the Raleigh-Wake County Home Builders Association (which is one of the largest HBAs in the country). If you think everything that you do is private, sorry. I’m not sure why every outfit needs to keep so much info about us. When we want to buy a ticket we should be able to buy it without our info being kept, because then it can become part of a Ticketmaster data breach and sold to bad people. (Found here, this week’s podcasts are sponsored by American Financial Resources, the mortgage lender that’s shaking things up by streamlining processes, bringing on the best humans in the business, and putting the customer experience front and center. Hear an interview with Tim Braheem on both how originators can cultivate relationships with agents in today’s market and also diversify their referral sources, so they are not so reliant solely on realtors.) Software, Products, and Services for Lenders and Brokers

This week got off to a late start as markets were closed on Monday for Memorial Day. Upon returning to the office, traders began pushing rates higher almost immediately. It’s often said that the bond market can experience elevated, seemingly random volatility amid the lighter trading participation seen on the days surrounding 3-day weekends.  Tuesday may have been a good example as it brought the biggest move of the week despite an absence of high consequence data. That’s not to say that data was completely absent.  Traders digested comments from several Fed speakers with the most memorable example coming from Minneapolis Fed’s Kashkari who said he’d need to see “many” more months of good inflation data before the Fed would consider cutting rates.  This is a departure from the average Fed speaker who uses words like “several” to discuss the same dependency.   In addition to Fed comments, there was a condensed schedule of Treasury auctions.  These regularly scheduled auctions account for the “supply” side of supply and demand in the bond market.  Higher supply means lower prices and higher rates, all other things being equal.  In this case, the amount of supply is published well in advance, but the auction process provides a temperature check for investor demand.  The relatively lower demand at this week’s auctions also played a role in pushing rates higher in the first two days. Things began to improve on Thursday–not only because auctions were over, but also due to rate-friendly revisions in the quarterly GDP data.  Finally, Friday’s PCE inflation data helped add momentum to Thursday’s recovery.

This week’s most hotly anticipated report–monthly core PCE inflation–came in 0.2% versus a median forecast of 0.3% this morning.  That’s welcome news for a bond market that’s been concerned about surprisingly high inflation numbers in Q1, but not a wholly resounding victory considering the unrounded number (.249%) was as high as it could have been without being rounded up to 0.3%.  Fortunately, other components of the report also leaned toward the bond-friendly side of the argument.  Cap it all off with an exceptionally weak Chicago PMI and bonds are starting the day with a move back into last week’s 4.34-4.50 range.

The announcement comes after weeks of criticism from the bureau’s director over fees including title insurance and credit scores.

The assumption process is highly manual and time consuming and the change from Dark Matter enables lenders to pull data from MSP back into the Empower system.

An index of contract signings from the National Association of Realtors dropped 7.7% to 72.3, the lowest reading since the early months of the pandemic.