MBS MID-DAY: Nothing Really Matters Despite Small-Scale Drama

The only significant development for markets today in terms of news or economic data was the overnight news that Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet.  If that sounds a bit far removed from the world of MBS and mortgage rates, it is.  That's why the move was modest.  It's also now been fully erased.

In the bigger picture, bond markets simply continue to consolidate.  This has been going on for most of November and today brought 10yr yields all the way back below the levels seen BEFORE NFP.  It just so happened that those pre-NFP levels coincided with a few technical targets, including the popular 21-day exponential moving average that serves as the foundation for the middle Bollinger Band.

Bottom line, left to their own devices, yields would continue to consolidate in an ever-narrower range heading into the holiday, but the Turkey/Russia news made for an unexpected move down to levels that enticed some sellers to jump back in the market, thus pushing yields back up toward their preferred technical zone within a bp of 2.25, higher or lower.

For what it's worth, some lenders who priced early enough in the morning are getting close to considering negative reprices because of the gap in prices between then and now.  Fannie 3.5 are only down 1 tick on the day, but are down 3.5 ticks from morning rate sheet print times.