Perceived risk among lenders may result from a struggle to fully understand what the technology can and won’t do as advocates tout its efficiency and speed.

Open But Not Really Open

This is just a reminder that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the most useless and inconsequential trading day of the year.  In very rare cases, movement can be tied to actual events/data, but that’s not the case today. We do not publish detailed commentary on this particular Friday unless something interesting is happening.  We’re only publishing this to let you know we’re watching and still not seeing anything interesting. 

Market Movement Recap

10:03 AM sideways overnight and modestly weaker so far.  MBS down 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 1.7bps at 4.012

As is most often the case, the Friday after Thanksgiving added nothing interesting to mortgage rate momentum.  The average lender’s top tier 30yr fixed rate is exactly where it was on Wednesday.  The underlying bond market closes early today, but will be fully open next week.  At that point, we’re likely to see some volatility return for rates, depending on the results of economic reports. 

When did our business start with the catchy slogans? Stay alive in ’25? Stay in the mix in ’26. It’ll be heaven in ’27. How about, “Try to earn a little revenue every day, day after day.”? Smart mortgage bankers look at units, not dollar volumes. If an LO does $5 million in a month, is that one $5 million loan or ten $500,000 loans? And if your cost per loan is $11,000, on a $5 million loan that is good, since the monthly hit is $11,000, but on the ten loans it would be $110,000. Cost per loan… what are you trying to do to improve your pull through, and not spending money on credit reports on loans with little chance of funding? After all, higher pull through automatically lowers your cost per funded loan. On a larger scale, IMB numbers are dropping as lenders merge, are acquired, or throw in the towel. Lenders have certainly adopted ARM, home equity, and non-Agency products. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are sponsored by The Big Point of Sale, which delivers a fast, flexible, and low-cost mortgage POS that gets lenders up and running in hours (not months) while empowering loan officers and consumers to collaborate seamlessly from any device. Interview with ALTA’s Chris Morton on why seller impersonation and wire fraud persist despite heightened awareness, what new and harder-to-detect schemes are emerging, how the industry can balance speed with security, and how shifting market and technology conditions will shape the next wave of fraud risk and preparedness.)

Now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has refused to request funding from the Federal Reserve System, many experts see the case making its way to the Supreme Court.

If cumulative loss or a delinquency trigger event is in effect, then the deal will distribute principal among the class A notes before any principal allocation the class M1 or class B certificates.

After three consecutive weeks of increases, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropped 0.3 basis points to 6.23% this week, according to Freddie Mac.

Recent high-profile ethics violations by senior Federal Reserve officials, including new revelations concerning stock trades by former Fed Gov. Adriana Kugler, have sparked debate over the effectiveness of the central bank’s oversight, even as some observers stress such cases remain rare.

Non-banks tracked by Morningstar DBRS reported combined net income of $367 million for the third quarter, down from $807 million three months prior.

Holiday Week Volatility With Zero Consequence

Although there was a brief negative reaction to this morning’s economic data, the impact was minimal. Random holiday-week volatility accounted for bigger swings, but those swings ultimately canceled each other out. By the 3pm close, bonds were close enough to unchanged levels. That makes today truly forgettable in the bigger picture. Trading doesn’t get real/serious again until December.  NOTE: Friday is technically open until 2pm ET, but as is our custom, we will only publish commentary on an “as-needed” basis (i.e. if the movement is minimal, you won’t hear from us until Monday).

Econ Data / Events

Durable goods (Sep)

0.5% vs 0.3% f’cast, 2.9% prev

Jobless Claims (Nov)/22

216K vs 225K f’cast, 220K prev

Continued Claims (Nov)/15

1,960K vs — f’cast, 1974K prev

Market Movement Recap

09:05 AM modestly weaker after data. MBS down 3 ticks (.09) and 10yr up 2.2bps at 4.018

12:23 PM Volatility centered on 10am ET, but now back near best levels.  MBS unchanged and 10yr up only 0.6bps at 4.002

02:44 PM Approaching 3pm CME close with 10yr yields nearly unchanged at 3.999 and MBS down 1 tick (.03).