Mortgage Bond Market Analysis - Hump Day and Oil

Happy Hump Day.  With no surprise, bond trading today is being highly influenced by oil.  News from Saudi Arabia is that they aren't going to freeze production so oil is down big this morning as is the stock market which means money is flowing into bonds.  Yesterday bonds were down as much as 31 basis points thanks to existing home sales that came in at 5.47mil vs. 5.32mil expected.  The Richmond Fed Manufacturing index helped provide a bottom and give a bit of a lift coming in at -4 vs. estimates of +2.  What really turned things around for the FNMA benchmark bond yesterday, though, was February Consumer Confidence with a big miss at 92.2 vs. estimates of 97.  The bond closed up 13 basis points at 102.60 - 8 basis points above the 1st level of resistance.  The oil sell-off and more weak economic news is helping to push bond prices even higher this morning.

January New Home Sales came in at 494K vs. expectations of 520K and previous of 544K.  While this is a big miss and is in lock-step with the consumer confidence number, it's not really a factor in bond prices.  Currently, the FNMA bond is up 15 basis points at 102.75, 12 basis points off the morning high and 3 basis points below the 2nd level of resistance.  The RSI is about smack dab in the middle between the overbought and oversold thresholds so it's a non-factor.  Tomorrow is Jobless Claims Thursday and it's also likely to be a non-factor as well.  Over the last 2+ weeks the bond has been in a very narrow range with no real impetus to break out one way or the other.  Oil doesn't have a lot of room to move to the down side which would benefit bonds.  The likelihood of more weak data means that downside risk isn't huge either.  If you (borrower / Realtor with a buyer / borrower) can keep a close eye on the mortgage bond market so that you can act quickly, I recommend floating if your transaction is closing 15+ days out; if it's closing sooner than that, take advantage of the gains from yesterday and today to lock.  You can get my intraday alerts (if there's any big movements in the market during the day) by downloading my app (buyerZapp) - the link is in the upper right corner of my blog.

Contact me if I can help with anything - 702-812-1214, 801-853-8720 or jed.wunderli@noblehomeloans.com.  Make it a great day.

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