MBS RECAP: Bond Markets Hold Ground Despite Stock Gains

By: Matthew Graham •

Treasuries and MBS are heading out the door in very similar territory to Friday's latest levels.  This is something of a relief considering they looked to be on the run on Friday Afternoon.  The culprit was an ostensibly game-changing headline suggesting that the growing numbers of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border was simply due to military drills and that those drills were now over.

Then today, new headlines emerged indicating that a top NATO official still sees a high risk escalation.  A separate headline cited a Ukrainian military spokesman as saying Russia had 45,000 troops on the border with tanks, missiles, planes, and helicopters.  Whether or not these counterpoints to Friday's headline ultimately helped bond markets today isn't entirely clear, but they certainly didn't hurt. 

Trading ranges stayed fairly narrow.  MBS improved very slightly most of the day while Treasuries were under more pressure early, but then improved more noticeably heading into the afternoon.  The positivity pulled back just after 2pm, leaving trading levels close to unchanged.

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
98-18 : +0-01
FNMA 3.5
102-09 : +0-02
FNMA 4.0
105-13 : +0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.4440 : +0.0040
10 YR
2.4260 : +0.0110
30 YR
3.2380 : +0.0120
Pricing as of 8/11/14 4:32PMEST
Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
3:36PM  :  MBS an Eighth of a Point off Highs; No Major Reprice Risk
1:47PM  :  MBS and Treasuries at Best Levels After Overnight 'Risk Rally' Levels off
9:28AM  :  Bond Markets Battle Back After Weaker Overnight Trading
MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Hugh W. Page  :  "I was under the impression that most lenders do a "soft pull" before closing to make sure debt balances haven't increased over a given tolerance."
Ted Rood  :  "Yeah, that's an overlay too. Repull not required if you monitor credit for new inquiries during the loan process."
dustin mcalister  :  "what i thought, but i don't think pennymac has an overlay on it, we just do it everytime no matter what i think like on convetional. "
Paul Carlin  :  "No on the credit, but that could be an overlay"
dustin mcalister  :  "are va loans required to have a credit refresh within 10 days of closing? "