MBS MID-DAY: 12/8/2011

Although this morning's sell-off in stocks is mostly within the broader range, a 20 point swing lower is the most significant half-hour downtick we've seen in a few weeks, thus catching our attention.

The timing of stock sell-off, bond rally is really unfortunate for interested market watchers as it occurred just after Jobless claims, giving the false impression it was connected. The real source of the movement was ECB President Mario Draghi's statement following the ECB's expected rate cut this morning as well as the press conference Q&A that followed.

First of all, there could easily be a technical component here that discounts both Jobless Claims and Draghi. The 1266 range has been a hugely pertinent resistance level for S&P's during the first part of December as far as hourly charts are concerned. But discounting a technical component, the first thing we notice is a top at 8:37am, right about the time that Draghi noted that "all non-standard monetary policy measures are temporary."

Things moved sideways from there until about 10minutes later, when the Q&A period started. Here are a few of the Q&A wires from Reuters that may have contributed to the stock sell-off:

- DRAGHI-DID NOT CONSIDER CUTTING RATE MORE

- DRAGHI - ASKED IF RATE DECISION WAS UNANIMOUS, SAYS NO

- GOVERNMENT BOND PURCHASES FOR TRANSMISSION OF MON POL, NOT INFINITE

- DO NOT WANT TO CIRCUMVENT EU TREATY

- USING IMF AS CHANNEL VERY COMPLEX LEGALLY

- DRAGHI, ON ECB LENDING TO IMF, SAYS ECB IS NOT AN IMF MEMBER

These, combined with the 17 other ways Draghi said the ECB can't directly inject brings us back to waiting on the summit for a treaty change, and that seems to have abruptly taken the wind out of stocks' sails and breathed fresh air into bond markets.

Independent mortgage banks and subsidiaries made an average profit of $1,263 on each loan they originated in the third quarter of 2011, up from $575 per loan in the second quarter of 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Third Quarter 2011 Mortgage Bankers Performance Report released today.

"Higher volume helped profitability as production costs were spread over a greater number of loans," said Marina Walsh, MBA's Associate Vice President of Industry Analysis. "Third quarter production expenses dropped on a per-loan basis as volume rose, although expenses remained high by historical standards when compared to other quarters with similar volume."

Walsh continued, "At the same time, secondary marketing income rose from $4,006 per loan in the second quarter of 2011 to $4,563 per loan in the third quarter of 2011. Secondary marketing gains improved as primary-secondary spreads widened in the third quarter."

(Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a nine-month low last week, a government report showed on Thursday, suggesting the labor market recovery was gaining momentum.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 381,000, the Labor Department said, the lowest since late February. That was below economists' expectations for a fall to 395,000.

The report, coming on the heels of data last week showing a rise in hiring and a sharp drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent in November, pointed to some healing in a sector that has been the Achilles heel of the economy's recovery.

Claims were the latest data to suggest an acceleration in economic growth in the current quarter after output expanded at a 2.0 percent annual rate in the July-September period.

"It looks as if the U.S. labor market does not know how to spell the word euro contagion," said Cary Leahey, economist at Decision Economics in New York. "This is a good report ... adds to the sense that the job market continues to brighten, though very slowly."

Yesterday's open was preceded by an uneventful overnight session with low volume and the same is even more true for today's open. Volume dropped off to holiday-like levels and the price action was so abysmally sideways (basically a 1bp range in 10's between 2.035 and 2.045) that we can't quite scoff loud enough in commenting on it.

We could mention headlines such as the EU Commission commenting on S&P's EU downgrade, Italian/Spanish CDS widening, Fitch commenting positively on Italian Austerity, Sarkozy speaking cryptically about time being of the essence in deciding on Euro Zone, or even the more recent "as expected" ECB rate cut, but the fact is that if 10yr futures volumes are under 100k heading into the NY open and overnight yields cut a 1bp range, that absolutely nothing of consequence happened.

Markets are either doing a great job of fooling us or anyone and everyone is incessantly focused on Friday's EU Summit. That said, Draghi's press conference later today on the ECB cuts could be somewhat of an event and there's even some domestic economic data (finally)!

0830am - Jobless Claims, expected at 395k (previous 402k)
1000am - Wholesale Inventories, expected +0.3 (prev. -0.1)
1000am - Wholesale Sales, expected +0.4 (prev +0.5)

Treasuries and MBS have been weakening since the NY open, currently up 3.5bps in 10yr yields to 2.068 and down 6 ticks from opening levels in 3.5 MBS at 102-13 (but still 4 ticks higher than yesterday's 102-09 going-out levels.