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MBS RECAP: 2/3/2012 »

Posted To: MBS Commentary

MBS Live : MBS RECAP Open MBS Live Dashboard FNMA 3.5 103-24 : -0-10 FNMA 4.0 105-17 : -0-09 FNMA 4.5 106-26 : -0-04 FNMA 5.0 108-01 : -0-02 GNMA 3.5 105-02 : -0-11 GNMA 4.0 107-24 : -0-07 GNMA 4.5 109-03 : -0-05 GNMA 5.0 110-27 : -0-03 FHLMC 3.5 103-16 : -0-09 FHLMC 4.0 105-06 : -0-08 FHLMC 4.5 106-09 : -0-04 FHLMC 5.0 107-20 : -0-01 Pricing as of 4:02 PM EST Afternoon Market Updates A recap of MBS Market Updates provided by MND Analysts and streamed live to the MBS Live Dashboard . 1:54PM : NY Files Lawsuit Against Big Banks for Deceptive and Fraudulent Use of MERS Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today filed a lawsuit against several of the nation?s largest banks charging that the creation and use of a private national mortgage electronic registry system known as MERS has resulted in...(read more)

MERS, Banks Sued by New York State; MERSCORP Responds »

Posted To: MND NewsWire

Three major banks and Virginia-based MERSCORP, Inc. and its subsidiary Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems ( MERS ) were sued Friday by the state of New York. The suit, filed by the state's Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman , charges that the creation and use of a privately national electronic registration system, MERS, "has resulted in a wide range of deceptive and fraudulent foreclosure filings in New York state and federal courts, harming homeowners and undermining the integrity of the judicial foreclosure process." Further, the lawsuit charges that the employees and agents of the three banks, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo , acting as "MERS certifying officers," have repeatedly submitted court documents containing false and misleading information that made...(read more)

Mortgage Rates Higher Following Employment Report »

Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch

The monthly Employment Situation Report was released at 8:30am this morning, with much better-than-expected results. Stocks rallied sharply and most every interest rate in fixed-income markets moved higher. The economic optimism created by this sort of data tends to increase demand for riskier investments like stocks and lower demand for things like fixed-income notes and bonds. MBS (the "mortgage backed securities" that most directly govern mortgage rates) fall into this fixed-income sector, and definitely weakened following the jobs data. As a result, Mortgages Rates moved higher at their fastest pace in some time, traversing most of this week's territory, but leaving Best-Execution rates mostly at 3.875%. (learn more about how we calculate Best-Execution in THIS POST ). We'd said yesterday...(read more)

Geithner Outlines Accomplishments, Future of Financial Reform »

Posted To: MND NewsWire

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the Financial Stability Oversight Council that the financial system is getting stronger and safer and that much of the excess risk-taking and careless financial practices that caused so much damage has been forced out. However, he said, "These gains will erode over time if we are not able to put our full reforms into place." He outlined the basic framework has been laid, with new global agreements to limit leverage, rules for managing the failure of a large firm and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) up and running, and the majority of the new safeguards for derivatives markets proposed. Geithner ticked off the major accomplishments of reform. First, banks now face much tougher limits on risk which are critical to reducing the risk of...(read more)

HOPE NOW Conference Focused on Military Families, Mediation »

Posted To: MND NewsWire

HOPE NOW, the voluntary private sector alliance of mortgage industry stakeholders, recently concluded a two day conference in Washington which focused on assistance to military homeowners and foreclosure mediation. One group of servicers, investors, and housing counselors met with regulators, investors, and members of the military to discuss ways of reaching military families facing foreclosure because of their unique situation which includes Permanent Change of Station and other issues. A second group of HOPE NOW stakeholders met with judges, attorneys, and several state housing agencies to discuss best standards related to foreclosure mediation. John Dalton, President of the Housing Policy Council, former Secretary of the Navy, and a panelist at the conference said "The current housing crisis...(read more)

MBS Down, But Not Out Following Strong Jobs Report »

Posted To: MBS Commentary

There is plenty of play-by-play on the post-NFP sell-off in the MBS Recap . If you haven't seen those updates already, that's a good place to start, and in terms of where MBS are and what they're doing, there's not much more to say. So we'll focus instead on the longer term implications, look at charts, and consider the week ahead. First off, here's some pictorial accompaniment for today's movement. MBS turn out to have been relatively drama-free since the initial sell-off, returning to bounce fairly convincingly for a second time at 103-18. Even if MBS were now to break below that pivot, volume has basically dried up for the week, leaving the big bounces seen in the earlier heavy volume as the more significant from a technical perspective. To quantify the relative change in volume on the day...(read more)

MBS MID-DAY: Mostly Sideways After NFP-Inspired Losses »

Posted To: MBS Commentary

MBS Live : MBS MID-DAY Open MBS Live Dashboard FNMA 3.5 103-23 : -0-11 FNMA 4.0 105-20 : -0-06 FNMA 4.5 106-26 : -0-04 FNMA 5.0 108-01 : -0-01 GNMA 3.5 105-03 : -0-10 GNMA 4.0 107-25 : -0-06 GNMA 4.5 109-05 : -0-03 GNMA 5.0 110-29 : -0-01 FHLMC 3.5 103-16 : -0-09 FHLMC 4.0 105-09 : -0-06 FHLMC 4.5 106-10 : -0-03 FHLMC 5.0 107-20 : -0-01 Pricing as of 11:02 AM EST Morning Market Updates A recap of MBS Market Updates provided by MND Analysts and streamed live to the MBS Live Dashboard . 10:20AM : ALERT: MBS Struggle to Hold Lows Following 2nd Round of Econ Data Admittedly, ISM Non-Manufacturing and Factory Orders are not the most critical market-moving economic reports. Case in point, see the 58k 10yr contracts traded in the 10 minutes following these two, versus the 268k contracts in the 10...(read more)

PHH Restructuring; MBA Classes; Servicing Comp Change Bearing Away; Harsher Fraud Penalties Coming? »

Posted To: Pipeline Press

The e-mail wires here in Miami have been burning up with...e-mails. PHH clients received a note from Norm Fitzgerald , explaining the recent restructuring. "I am writing to let you know we recently decided to reallocate resources from our Correspondent Lending channel to our Private Label Solutions and Real Estate Field Sales distribution channels. Although this action will reduce our Correspondent Lending volume, I want to be clear that we are committed to Correspondent Lending and will continue to participate in the business with a renewed focus on our high quality and long term customers. We made this decision in response to ongoing challenges posed by the volatility in the global economy, the capital markets and the housing markets. We believe these market uncertainties require an increased...(read more)

Calculating Current Coupon in a Record Low Rate Environment »

Posted To: Secondary Markets

The recent drop in rates has created some interesting situations in the market, especially for lenders.   First of all, I'm not aware of any consensus on how to calculate a "current coupon" rate in this environment.  The current coupon is calculated by interpolating between coupons that are above and below par, adjusting for the delay days associated with the securities in question.

Let's take an example from the old days when coupons traded below par.  Let's assume the following, assuming (for simplicity's sake) that we're calculating the current coupon for February settlement, with FN 3.0s at 99.00 and FN 3.5 at 101.25.  First, you have to adjust for the delay days.  Fannie Mae pools pay on the 25th of the month following the record date, which results in a 24-day delay.  (The delay results from all the accounting and financing complications involved with managing the vast numbers of loans in the MBS universe.)  The prices can be adjusted for the delay by adding 24 days of coupon payments.  For a 3% pool, the price is adjusted higher by 0.20 (i.e., 3.0 x 24/360), resulting in a 99.20 adjusted price; the 3.5% pool has an adjusted price of 101.2333.  You would then interpolate between the two prices to get the rate that equates to par.  In this case, it is 3.1967%.  The last adjustment is to convert it from monthly yield (since MBS pay monthly to a semi-annual bond equivalent yield, which result in a current coupon rate of 3.218%.

However, we are in a world where the lowest tradable coupon (30-year 3.0s) is both highly illiquid and well above par.  In past periods of low rates, the practice would be to extrapolate (rather than interpolate) to par.  This looks like what some people are doing; however, it gives you some very bizarre numbers if you try to track this number (or look at the current coupon spread over Treasuries or swaps).  A major provider shows the current coupon rate rising on Thursday from 2.52% to 2.70%, even though MBS prices were higher on the day.  This in turn means that the spread of the current coupon over the 10-year Treasury yield, a closely-watched benchmark, has fluctuated this week between +65 bps and +88 bps with minimal change in MBS relative value.  As they say...go figure.

The huge run-up in MBS prices has impacted the market in other ways.  Matt Graham wrote about the liquidity (or lack of liquidity) in 30-year 3.0s.  As he noted, some lenders are originating loans that would be securitized as 30-year 3.0s (as well as 15-year loans that would go into Dwarf 2.5s), although it's unclear what's being done with the loans.  (They could be sold to the GSEs' cash window.)  With rates pushing down, a 3.75% loan can still be pooled into a 3.5% security (with a proviso-see below); however, the poor execution on 3.0s, and lenders' unwillingness to short the coupon, has been an impediment to rates moving even lower.  For example, the spread between the Freddie Mac survey rate and the 10-year Treasury yield is at +204 basis points, versus an average (over the last two years) of +162. 

The "stickiness" of rates at current levels is, in my mind, largely a function of having limited outlets for loans with note rates of 3.625% and lower.  The biggest problem is that there is no natural buyer for 30-year MBS with 3% coupons.  I've recently written that the Fed should buy all outstanding 3% pools, which would do more good than just "buying the market."  In any case, markets for these very low coupons need to develop for rates to move decisively lower.

Another complicating factor is the impact of the recent tax on mortgages, paid as a 10 basis point addition to a loan's guaranty fee.  Consider the above example on pooling 3.75% loans into 3.5% pools.  It's almost certain that the new g-fee can be bought down entirely (although there has not yet been a definitive statement to that effect from Freddie or Fannie), leaving 25 basis points of servicing to be held by someone.  A question that the GSEs are grappling with, however, is the cap on agency buy-ups.  Most contracts are written such that the total amount that can acquired by the GSEs on any loan (including both the g-fee and servicing) is capped at 37.5 basis points.  This means that the 10 basis point tax limits the amount of servicing that the GSEs can buy as part of the pooling transaction.  While buy-ups have not been a big factor in the past (since most big lenders just held excess servicing, rather than sell it to the GSEs at puny multiples) this could be a factor in the future, especially in light of the shrinking number of players willing to take down servicing.   Supposedly, the GSEs are looking at increasing the caps, but it's unclear whether the contracts will (or can) be revised.

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Day Ahead: All Eyes On Employment Situation Report »

Posted To: MBS Commentary

First Friday of the month and time, once again, for The Employment Situation Report, or more specifically, the Non-Farm Payrolls headline. Both Manufacturing and Private payrolls are expected to have fallen somewhat from last month's report with the 200k headline falling to 150k. With both stocks and bonds near their best levels in about half a year, there aren't the usual foregone conclusions about a positive report hurting interest rates or a negative report hurting stocks. Without being overly optimistic about the team for which we cheer, it seems like Treasuries and MBS would have an easier time keeping a bid in the face of threatening data. To clean up that hypothesis a bit, let's say NFP comes in between 150-200k, beating the 150k consensus. Historically, such a result would tend to lead...(read more)