Mortgages

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MBS Live : MBS Afternoon Market Summary Despite stronger-than-expected Retail Sales figures, bond markets ratcheted another notch into positive territory earlier today. The bid was courtesy of flight-to-safety buying motivated by growing debt concerns in Europe. In fact, German Bunds, the Euro-zone benchmark, hit record low yields today in the 1.6's, making the high 1.9's in US 10yr Treasuries seem cheap by comparison. Investors got their fill early and quickly. But by the afternoon, with Europe done for the day and liquidity dried up, bond-bulls were too scarce to make a push for 10yr yields under 1.95%. MBS kept pace with the afternoon weakness in TSYs, basically giving up earlier gains to sit at unchanged levels into the last hour of the day. MBS Pricing Snapshot Pricing shown below is delayed...()

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Three mortgage originators and a title agent have been permanently barred from conducting business with the federal government after they pled guilty to charges of defrauding elderly borrowers, mortgage lenders, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in a reverse mortgage scam . The four, who are serving prison terms, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the scheme which resulted in $2.5 million in losses. Marcos Echevarria, Louis Gendason, John Incandela were loan officers working for 1 st Continental Mortgage with offices in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Rata Florida; Kimberly Mackey was a title agent and owner of Real Estate One Land Services, Inc. in Pittsburgh. According to the government's complaints the loan officers identified financially vulnerable elderly homeowners...()

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The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported this morning that permits for privately owned housing construction were issued at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 747,000 units in March. This is an increase of 4.5 percent from the revised February rate of 715,000 and a 30.1 percent jump from the 574,000 pace set in March 2011. February's permits were originally estimated at 717,000. Permits were issued for single family homes at a rate of 462,000, down 3.5 percent from the upwardly revised (from 472,000) February figure of 479.000. Construction was authorized for 262,000 units in buildings of five or more units, an increase of 24.2 percent from the previous month. The multi-family permitting rate was originally thought to have surged in February to...()

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The New York Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Index is by no means an inconsequential report, but even the big miss it experienced yesterday isn't sufficient to counteract the much-stronger-than-expected Retail Sales numbers. In other words, if bond markets were solely trading the data, we would have seen weakness yesterday morning as opposed to a rally to the best levels in over a month. As we, and most of the rest of the world discussed yesterday, Spanish debt drama was a big enough concern for the Euro-zone that it helped fuel a flight to safety in German Bunds as well as US Treasuries. The "drama" in this case, wasn't especially dramatic compared to the more harrowing moments of Greece's recent bailout saga, but Spanish 10yr yields over 6% conjure up fears that Spain is heading down a similar...()