MBS RECAP: Little-Changed vs Yesterday's Close; Thoughts Turn to FOMC

By: Matthew Graham

Bond market trading drove home the point that the current week was over today and that it had been over ever since the post-Retail Sales rally failed to thrive for more than about 10 minutes yesterday.  Since then, yields have been rising in that inconsequential, technical sort of way that seems to indicate "we're not exactly sure where we're gonna go, but we know it won't be any lower."

A similar theme played out on other end of the spectrum this morning as yields bounced against a supportive ceiling in line with pre-auction lows from Wednesday.  The chart from today's mid-day commentary showed that supportive bounce:

Nothing really happened after that.  In the mid-day, I noted that it looked like the day was done, saying we were "left with 2.13+ and 2.09 as the bookends for this Friday."  My thinking was that higher-conviction moves don't make a lot of sense until FOMC, or at least not without more substantial data.  Indeed yields never made a meaningful run through either level, though did test 2.09 for a split-second just before noon.  After hugging the strong levels for a few hours, we drifted weaker into the close.  Several lenders repriced negatively.


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
101-03 : -0-01
FNMA 3.5
104-06 : +0-00
FNMA 4.0
106-13 : +0-00
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6610 : -0.0030
10 YR
2.1160 : +0.0060
30 YR
2.6980 : +0.0040
Pricing as of 3/13/15 4:27PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
3:58PM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Another Incremental Increase in Negative Reprice Risk
3:04PM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Friday Slide Reintroduces Modest Reprice Risk
9:27AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Pre-Rate Sheet Equivalent of Negative Reprice Risk

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Ira Selwin  :  "check question 5 of http://mndne.ws/18jbJSp"
Ira Selwin  :  "As far as I know, no Ted"
Ted Rood  :  "So, if a condo is on the PERS list, you still need to do a limited review, right?"
Ira Selwin  :  "And part of the blame is "the IRS is operating at the lowest level of funding since 2008, and the lowest since 1998 when inflation is considered...""
Ira Selwin  :  "Yes ABM"
Gus Floropoulos  :  "2 weeks aint bad this time of year. Self employed 4506's can take up to 8 weeks"
aaron meyer  :  "Have you seen an increased amount of time it takes to get 4506t's lately? Might it be due to tax filings? Some of mine have been taking nearly 2 weeks"