MBS MID-DAY: Holding Modest Gains in Uneventful Trading

By: Matthew Graham

The clear message from today's trading range in bond markets is that this weekend will finally be an actual weekend.  That's a change of pace from the recent norm, where weekends have been focal points for volatility.  It wasn't a surprise to see that sort of volatility considering that there were major developments on each of the past two weekends (Greek referendum first, then the EU Summit this past weekend that produced the agreement).  Similarly, with Greece and other Eurozone countries agreeing on--well... the agreement by this morning, there's no drama left for this weekend.

Now begins a long, less consequential slog for Greece in its effort to implement the agreed-upon reforms and ultimately unlock the rest of the bailout funds.  That will all probably happen.  The biggest uncertainties have been addressed.  So markets are free to go about their business.  It's not that this freedom didn't exist before, just that it was distorted by Greece-related volatility.

Indeed, the whole point of much of my recent analysis has been to suggest that bond markets had been doing what they wanted to do in the bigger picture.  That meant "moving higher in yield" in May and June, and holding ground in July, even though the Greece situation suggests the opposite on both occasions. 

Today, bond markets don't want to be doing much of anything heading into the weekend--a fact that's reflected not only the in the narrow trading range, but also in light trading volumes.  There was a very brief move into weaker territory following the strong Housing Starts data this morning, but as soon as traders realized the strength came only from multi-family, the weakness reversed course.  Multi-family construction doesn't bespeak sustainable growth of the American Dream in the same way that single-family construction would.  As such, it's not seen as being bullish for the economy (it's actually more of a byproduct of the bipolarization of wealth, post-crisis, and the financing challenges that has created for less financially secure borrowers).


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
99-21 : +0-05
FNMA 3.5
103-01 : +0-04
FNMA 4.0
105-29 : +0-03
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6650 : +0.0040
10 YR
2.3430 : -0.0130
30 YR
3.0810 : -0.0330
Pricing as of 7/17/15 12:00PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
9:49AM  :  Bond Markets Remarkably Stable All Night/Morning; Back to Green Now

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Matthew Graham  :  "big beat in starts and permits, MB."
B C  :  "housing starts?"
Michael Baker  :  "Since CPI was inline with expectation why the minny selloff? (+1 before release / -3 post announcement)"
Matthew Graham  :  "as originators (and ex originators, turned bond market pontificators) we have a tendency to want to focus on the data that supports our happiness. Don't ignore reality though."
Matthew Graham  :  "and housing starts are pretty darn close with today's reading."
Matthew Graham  :  "existing home sales are at post-meltdown highs"
Matthew Graham  :  "since when did policy become about comparing housing to the last 25 years?"
John Tassios  :  "can't look at only 1 mo data. Overall US economy is still mixed bag. Housing still much lower volume growth than years past, and home ownership % is US is the lowest in 25 years. "
Victor Burek  :  "Yellen has flat out said...its happening..but as mg said, something must change, but data supports it"
Matthew Graham  :  "to say "no way" is wishful thinking. It's possible, but something would have to change about the current trajectory"
Oliver Orlicki  :  "no way they raise this year"
Victor Burek  :  "no way fed doesn't hike this year"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - US JUNE HOUSING STARTS 1.174 MLN UNIT RATE (CONSENSUS 1.110 MLN) VS MAY 1.069 MLN UNIT RATE (PREV 1.036 MLN)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- US JUNE HOUSING STARTS +9.8 PCT VS MAY -10.2 PCT (PREV -11.1 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. JUNE CPI YEAR-OVER-YEAR +0.1 PCT (CONS +0.1 PCT), EXFOOD/ENERGY +1.8 PCT (CONS +1.8 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. JUNE CPI +0.3 PCT (+0.3185; CONSENSUS +0.3 PCT), EXFOOD/ENERGY +0.2 PCT (+0.1791; CONS +0.2 PCT)"
John Tassios  :  "Yeah, Greece became the newest German state, located just below Bavaria. Greecstein."
Victor Burek  :  "Germany approved greek bailout"