MBS MID-DAY: Bond Markets get Another Lift from Europe; Oil/Equities Much-Discussed, but Scarcely Relevant

By: Matthew Graham •

There was a big drop in the S&P just after the noon hour, and it's being attributed to slumping energy shares or some such thing.  Frankly, I haven't seen the sort of justification for such a move that I'd like to see before actually commenting on it, but that clearly hasn't stopped a few of the big media outlets.  To make matters worse, some of the prevailing analysis suggests this is a factor in today's bond market strength!  The interesting things are twofold:

1. Oil prices fell all night and made several sharp moves lower that produced no reaction in equities markets.  Why would literally ALL of the day's equities losses come in the space of a few short minutes, well after oil prices had already leveled-off?

2. There was zero reaction in bond markets.  No exaggerations here.  Less than zero, perhaps.

On quite an opposite note, domestic bond markets have been exceedingly happy to react to European bond markets today, where German Bunds quickly tanked to their lowest level since December 1st.  Treasuries and MBS got over and early morning misstep and have been trending into more and more positive territory ever since. 

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
100-21 : +0-07
FNMA 3.5
103-29 : +0-05
FNMA 4.0
106-21 : +0-05
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6400 : -0.0033
10 YR
2.2780 : -0.0285
30 YR
2.9200 : -0.0451
Pricing as of 12/8/14 1:18PMEST
Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
9:43AM  :  Bond Markets Followed Europe Into the Green, but not for Long
Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Kenneth Crute  :  "dont think there is a hold back option, in my experience the work needs to be completed prior to closing "
Tim McNerney  :  "fha appraisal comes back with cost to cure for 3k-->can't the lender just hold the 3k from borrower until work is confirmed completed or MUST they have 2 different bids for the cost to cure items in order to offer an escrow holdback option?"
Matthew Graham  :  "my thought about year-end balance sheet window dressing is that it's the sort of thing that's leaned on as an explanation in the absence of more compelling explanations. The funny thing is that I've seen it go both ways too. So yeah... I'm not really looking for it to do any specific thing as far as prompting net-positive or negative momentum"
Sung Kim  :  "MG - when do we need to be concerned about year end funding or is this just a non-event"
Scott Valins  :  "hoping the flat open gives lenders further confidence in holding these levels and rate sheets are improved from Friday"
Matthew Graham  :  "relatively sharp European bond rally in progress. For all intents and purposes, that's 'saved us' this AM."