MBS RECAP: Solid, if Moderate Gains for MBS; What FOMC Announcement?

By: Matthew Graham

Don't look now, but against a slightly longer-term backdrop, bond markets merely continued in the same old ranges this week, despite being pushed nearer the weak end of that range by the FOMC Forecasts.  To be clear, that's FORECASTS, not Yellen.  I know we've been over that quite a bit since Wednesday, but it bears repeating.

While Yellen's definition of 'considerable' added a bit to the volatility and certainly had an effect on stock markets, bonds had already experienced as much selling as they would ultimately see that day.  Let me repeat that: despite all the talk about Yellen's 'gaffe,' 10yr yields ended the day at pre-gaffe levels!  No effect on bonds!

But that was Wednesday and this is today, and it marks the second day in a row that bond and stock markets have essentially "moved on," with both ending the day somewhere in the middle of Wednesday's range. 

Treasuries had a good day thanks to corporate debt hedging and tradeflows surrounding Treasury options expiries.   MBS had a good morning relative to Treasuries and leveled off into the afternoon having gained just over an eighth of a point.  Lenders were out of the gate in somewhat conservative fashion this morning, resulting in fairly widespread positive reprices in the afternoon. 

Despite the goodness, Treasuries and MBS are both closer to the weaker ends of their recent ranges, but importantly, still inside their boundaries.  It increasingly looks like it will be up to economic data (as opposed to Ukraine headlines or the Fed) to prompt a break from those ranges, and the data will be ramping up to Friday's NFP over the next 2 weeks.


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
96-12 : +0-07
FNMA 3.5
100-15 : +0-07
FNMA 4.0
103-27 : +0-05
Treasuries
2 YR
0.4286 : -0.0034
10 YR
2.7444 : -0.0306
30 YR
3.6085 : -0.0525
Pricing as of 3/21/14 4:39PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
3:14PM  :  Ongoing Positive Reprice Potential Thanks to Treasuries and Conservative AM Rate Sheets
12:06PM  :  Positive Reprice Potential as MBS Trickle into Highs
9:49AM  :  Bond Markets Move Into Positive Territory after Early Weakness

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Ted Rood  :  "Don't these secondary desks know it's Friday? Not supposed to have improves then!"
Andrew Horowitz  :  "Throwing LO's a treat in hopes of them coming back to work on Monday after the brutal week Ted"
Nathan Miller  :  "they need new locks"
Matthew Graham  :  "33% with scores under 700 in February compared to 24% a year ago. All those borrowers in the high 600's who were told to take a number last year are suddenly good enough now that capacity buckets need to be filled. Too cynical or just about right?"
Kenneth Crute  :  "is there an answer when cynical is also accurate? "