MBS RECAP: Weaker Trend Intact after Retail Sales and Yellen Testimony

By: Matthew Graham

As far as today's market movers are concerned, Retail Sales was dwarfed by Yellen, but most of the reaction to Yellen cancelled itself out.  In other words, Retail Sales accounted for the only decisive push into weaker territory this morning.  Yellen accounted for bigger moves but deposited trading levels right where they had been after Retail Sales.

The damage was anything but severe with Fannie 3.5s not even down an eighth at the moment and 10yr yields up less than a bp.  That said, yesterday was more decisively weak and today's more active session now acts as a sort of confirmation of that weakness. 

This keeps the pressure on bond markets from a technical standpoint in that the possibility of a reversal back to the higher end of the rate range is still alive.  The saving grace was that 10yr yields bounced nicely at 2.57, which is not only a well-traveled inflection point, but also the mid-point for a few technical studies.  Bottom line, staying under 2.57 keeps hope alive.


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
98-05 : -0-01
FNMA 3.5
102-03 : -0-02
FNMA 4.0
105-12 : -0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.4799 : +0.0159
10 YR
2.5522 : +0.0032
30 YR
3.3723 : +0.0033
Pricing as of 7/15/14 4:42PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
4:06PM  :  Ongoing Weakness Heading Into Last Hour; MBS Still Off Lows
11:27AM  :  Holding Ground/Moderate Bounce; Reprice Risk Pulling Back
11:01AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Negative Reprice Risk is Increasing
10:33AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Back Into Weaker Territory as Yellen Q&A Begins; Lows of the Day
10:07AM  :  Back in Positive Territory As Yellen Testimony Begins
8:45AM  :  Bond Markets Weaker After Retail Sales

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Matthew Graham  :  "depends what you're wanting your boundaries to represent. Definitely 2.66 is important on the high end. On the bullish side, there are more choices. 2.47 and 2.40 are long-term and fairly epic. But some people look at 2.47-2.51 as "2.5" and call it good. In general, it's hard to argue with that stance as trading has been compartmentalized between 3.0 and 2.5 for the most part since mid 2013"
Andrew Haynes  :  "im looking at a long term range of 2.43-2.65 and short term of 2.61-2.51 does that sound about right MG?"
Jon Bodan  :  "US Bank"
Michael Mitchell  :  "Hey Guys- What Lender (Retail, correspondent, Wholesale) is still doing Interest only on Jumbo?"
Andy Pada, Jr.  :  "i read something like 66%"
Christopher Stevens  :  "anyone know Chase drop in mtg business year over year"