MBS Market Commentary

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Examples of Mortgage Capital Trading Daily Market Commentary

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This daily commentary is a quick and digestible insight into our perspective of recent events, rate changes, presentations, and understanding of the MBS market today.

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Previous Weekly Mortgage Backed Securities Market Commentaries & Industry News

Now available publicly online, read our most recent weekly mortgage market commentary articles, and take a glimpse of our previous mortgage commentaries. Join our newsletter to receive MBS daily commentary and check back to our website each week for more mortgage industry news.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/31/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/31/23

The market reaction went a little “too far, too fast” in regard to the Fed policy pivot. We witnessed the coupon stack (i.e., the price spread between TBA coupons) decompress in more than a trivial manner in a short period. However, the primary mortgage market has been largely reluctant to follow the Treasury rally, and mortgage rates have ultimately not dropped by the same amount as Treasury yields.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/24/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/24/23

The FOMC raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to a new range of 4.75%-5.00% on Wednesday, a middle ground policy move made in the hope of tampering inflation without further harming the banking system. The raise marks the 9th consecutive rate hike since the Fed began hiking in May of last year and brings the target fed funds rate range to the highest level since September 2007. While the central bank’s monetary policy has been aimed at correcting inflation, it has also revealed hidden weaknesses (e.g., entities whose balance sheets relied on low interest rates).

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/17/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/17/23

Next week will reveal the Fed’s resolve on continuing to beat the drum on their aggressive inflation fight. The word until now has been that the central bank will keep hiking interest rates until inflation is under control.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/10/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 3/10/23

Events this week likely will lead to a higher peak interest rate than investors had been expecting just weeks ago. Central bankers appear worried about a cycle in which workers seek higher pay to offset inflation’s bite, and in turn trigger more price increases. In fact, inflation remains high because people have jobs and earn enough income to cover stubbornly expensive housing costs. Robust hiring is good for the economy and workers, but elevated pay growth puts added pressure on the Fed to bring down earnings. 

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 2/10/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 2/10/23

The week after the jobs report is generally pretty data-light, and this week was no exception. With a dearth of data, market movement hinged on “Fed speak” and consumer sentiment. We saw some volatility return to bond markets as investors built in expectations for a more hawkish Fed. As a reminder, the Fed raised its benchmark rate last week to a range of 4.5% to 4.75%. Let’s run through what we’ve learned in the wake of that decision and a robust U.S. payrolls report that took some wind out of investors’ sails that had hopes for rate cuts by summer.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 2/3/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 2/3/23

As strong as economists may have thought the job market was, it’s even stronger. In addition to headline non-farm payrolls in January (517,000) beating estimates by around 300,000, employment numbers were revised higher for the past two months. Yes, a tight labor market is anathema to any sort of quick stop to the Federal Reserve’s rate hiking cycle, but the growth rate in average hourly earnings is declining, which will be welcome news to Fed Chair Powell and his colleagues. There exists a raging debate among economists over whether we’ll need a sharp rise in unemployment to keep inflation low.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/27/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/27/23

Even with the most aggressive pace of rate hikes in over a generation during the past year, recent data suggests that there’s still a path to a “soft landing” for the Federal Reserve. The U.S. economy posted the kind of mild slowdown in the last quarter of 2022 that the Fed wants to see as it attempts to tame inflation without choking off growth. Gross domestic product beat expectations to rise at a 2.9% annualized pace, down from 3.2% in the third quarter and a long way from a recession.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/20/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/20/23

Have you heard? Inflation was so 2022. All jokes aside, after we learned last week that U.S. inflation cooled for the sixth consecutive month (the consumer price index dropped 0.1% in December compared to the month prior), expectations are now that the Federal Reserve is likely to downshift rate hikes to 25 BPS going forward, beginning at next month’s FOMC meeting.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/13/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/13/23

Pay attention to the bond market rather than the Fed. That’s what I’m hearing as we learned this week that inflation continued to ease in December, though much focus was also on Wells’ exit from the correspondent space and its ramifications. The headline CPI (-0.1% month-over-month, +6.5% year-over-year) posted the slowest inflation rate in more than a year and core inflation (+5.7% year-over-year), which excludes food and energy, also posted the smallest advance in a year.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/6/23

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 1/6/23

While it’s back to business as usual, it was a fairly quiet week as we settled into the new year. Fast inflation and high interest rates dominated the narrative and upended markets across the world last year. When the dust settled, 10-year Treasuries were 200+ BPS higher than the start of the year, the curve inverted in a bearish fashion faster and farther than ever, implied volume spiked, and mortgage spreads were pushed from stubbornly rich to suddenly cheap. The result was an entire trade-able universe moving out of the money, originations grinding to a halt, and duration becoming a function of illiquid trade flows.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/23/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/23/22

MCT would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Talk to close the year has been dominated by the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive policy tightening in four decades and its impact on the economy, and for us the residential housing market.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/16/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/16/22

Consumer-price increases have begun a more pronounced slowdown from their 40-year high earlier this year as the Fed slowly gains ground against inflation. U.S. short-term inflation expectations, which the Fed does take into its calculus, eased again to the lowest level in more than a year, helped by falling gasoline prices. CPI came in at 7.1% on Tuesday, below expectations, however the Fed became more hawkish, which is a signal that it is too early to take a victory lap.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/9/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/9/22

The Fed is in its blackout ahead of next week’s FOMC events, and though the central bank has been telegraphing that it will eventually be shrinking the size of its rate increases, better than expected data has fueled speculation the Fed will keep rates higher for longer in the fight against inflation.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/2/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 12/2/22

ederal Reserve Chair Powell tried to walk the tightrope between stressing that the central bank’s inflation fight is far from over and telegraphing that policymakers could downshift from their rapid pace of tightening as soon as the December 13-14 FOMC meeting. The Fed’s publicly preferred measure of inflation, the PCE Core Price Index, which excludes food and energy, was expected to increase 5% year-over-year, but increased 6% (not exactly a downward trend). And the economy added 263,000 jobs in November, which was better than 200,000 estimates as wage inflation continues to increase; average hourly earnings rose 0.6%, faster than in October. 

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 11/18/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 11/18/22

As we enter the holiday season, everyone in the mortgage industry has the same problems: lower volume, lower pricing and gain on sale margins. With less emphasis on growing volume, due to a lack of borrower demand from currently high mortgage rates and a lack of seller demand from being locked into low mortgage rates, a much greater focus for companies in the mortgage industry has been on lowering costs and increasing profitability.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 11/4/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 11/4/22

We were reminded this week that the U.S. labor market is still on solid footing, aiding to speculation that the Federal Reserve will continue its aggressive rate hiking path beyond Wednesday’s 75 BPS rate increase. Today, we learned that October payrolls beat expectations (the headline figure came in at 261k, and there was a positive back month revision of 29k), which further complicates Fed’s job and lowers the odds of the mythical “soft landing.”

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/28/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/28/22

We still seem to be a ways off from the point an actual FOMC voter says “let’s wait and see” when it comes to hiking rates. Until that occurs, bond prices continue to fall and the Fed (and others) will continue to incur paper losses on massive bond holdings accumulated during pandemic rescue efforts.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/21/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/21/22

We are beginning to see the Fed’s policy moves take hold, with slowing productivity growth, marginal gains in labor force participation, and home builder sentiment continuing to drop as higher interest rate costs price out a large number of prospective buyers.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/14/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/14/22

The pace of the Fed’s rate hikes and winding down of QE4 have introduced heightened volatility to the bond market. The Fed has raised its benchmark interest rates five times this year, including three consecutive 75 BPS rate hikes, increasing the cost of borrowing money in the hope that more expensive loans will result in less investment, less business expansion, fewer jobs, lower pay, and ultimately less inflation.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/7/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 10/7/22

Interesting (read: disheartening) times in this rollercoaster of a bond market, huh? There’s the highest volatility in at least five years, colossal bid-ask spreads, scant liquidity in coupons above par, falling bond prices that have banks sitting on their hands, and a central bank that is still uncertain on how long and hawkish it plans to remain in tightening mode (don’t forget fear of a global recession, escalating geopolitical tensions thanks to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the UK’s tax-cut fiasco, and the potential for further defaults by developing nations). A year ago, 2-year Treasuries yielded 0.2%. They were 1% in January of this year, but today yield more than 4%.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/23/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/23/22

The phrase “Don’t fight the Fed” was first introduced in the 70’s (a lovely time for inflation lovers) and for most of the last few decades, the phrase meant that the Fed has the market’s back and investors are rewarded for keeping their feet on the gas pedal as the Fed injects liquidity, dampens volatility, and drives outsized returns. But fighting the Fed cuts both ways, and Fed officials are now intent on taming prices, even though the economy is already in a technical recession. Investors have been forced to consider their positions accordingly.

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/16/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/16/22

There are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation (higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions) that will bring some pain to households and businesses, but a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater economic pain. Markets have interpreted recent Fed comments as: “We are going to raise rates higher and keep them there longer than the market is anticipating. People now understand the seriousness of our commitment to getting inflation back down to 2%. If we have a hard landing and cause a recession, so be it.”

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/9/22

MBS Weekly Market Commentary Week Ending 9/9/22

This year’s run up the coupon stack has led to the destruction of both purchase supply and refinance demand, which has drastically reduced prepayment activity. The Fed’s QE4 created a refinance bonanza in 2020 and 2021, but with the Fed leaving the MBS purchase space next week for the foreseeable future, that party is over. The MCT Review this week examines August prepayment speeds that were released yesterday and what to expect for the remainder of the year.