MBS RECAP: Uneventful Afternoon After Morning Volatility

By: Matthew Graham

Bond markets were slightly weaker overnight as Geopolitical risk surround Ukraine continued to unwind.  There wasn't much by way of new developments there, and level of movement (i.e. "not much") suggest the same. 

Domestic economic data kept the bad times rolling in the morning.  This was exclusively a factor of Jobless Claims data, though we suspect that corporate rate-lock sellers could have used it as cover to get where they were going (Long story short: it's a huge week for corporate bonds and in the course of bringing their deals to market, billions in Treasuries can be sold to effectively "lock in" borrowing costs, the same way MBS are sold to lock in a cost of funding.  These sales will be reversed when the investors ultimately buy the bonds, but it causes volatility at the very least).

As such, Treasuries got the short end of the stick today.  MBS were much stronger by comparison, but both leveled off and/or improved from 10am through the close.  Overall, the move was moderate for Treasuries and fairly non-existent by the end of the day for MBS--consistent with a return to the super-long-term, super neutral 2.70-2.75 zone in 10yr yields.


MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
96-19 : -0-05
FNMA 3.5
100-28 : -0-04
FNMA 4.0
104-14 : -0-02
Treasuries
2 YR
0.3451 : +0.0121
10 YR
2.7355 : +0.0395
30 YR
3.6890 : +0.0450
Pricing as of 3/6/14 4:32PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
3:45PM  :  Coasting Out, Little-Changed Since AM
8:46AM  :  Bond Markets Weaker After Overnight Session and Morning Data

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - FED'S PLOSSER -NOT GOING TO DEVIATE FROM TAPERING PATH UNLESS SOMETHING PRETTY SIGNIFICANT HAPPENS"
Matthew Graham  :  "this is a consistent message (increasingly) from both doves and hawks"
Ted Rood  :  "Can't get paid on profitability, really need to make sure clients want to float if you're going to. Only thing worse than having a client mad they locked too soon is losing floating loans completely when rates spike."
Roland Wilcox  :  "agree w/TR - explain extra 40-50bps in fee to clients 15 vs 60 day lock and involve them in lock/float decision"

Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Friday, Mar 07
8:30 Non-farm payrolls (k)* Feb 149 113