Post-Fed Rally is "Nice" But Not Quite Exciting In a small vacuum, today's Fed announcement had a noticeably positive impact on bonds despite yielding "just another day" vibes in the bigger picture. Traders reacted to some combination of a reasonably steady […]

Heading into today, we knew the afternoon's Fed announcement was biggest potential flashpoint for interest rate movement, and that the movement probably wouldn't be extreme. The unknown, as always, was the direction of said movement. Thankfully, it was lower. This wasn't destined to be the case […]

Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated. The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and […]

Today's only big ticket calendar event is the Fed announcement, but that is more like 3 separate events over the course of roughly 2 hours. The announcement itself (2pm ET) contains the text of the official policy statement as well as confirmation that the Fed Funds Rate will remain unchanged. […]

Tired of writing those pesky checks? Wait no longer: If you don’t want to send a check through the U.S. Mail, for whatever reason, there’s Deluxe Payment Exchange that delivers an electronic check. Tired of those pesky Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae board members, like the one who won a Nobel Peace […]

Low Volatility Session Ahead of Fed Day 4 out of the year's 8 Fed announcements include an updated dot plot (i.e. a chart of each Fed member's projection for the Fed Funds Rate at the end of the next few years). Dots have come to be viewed as one of the […]

As we often discuss, mortgage lenders prefer to set their rates once per day. They only make changes when the underlying bond market makes a big enough move. While it wasn't an extreme example, many lenders made such changes today as bonds improved steadily throughout the day.  Before the […]

Recall 2 weeks ago that news of the incoming German Chancellor's ambitions to massively increase debt/spending led to the end of the bond rally in the US that took 10yr yields from 4.55 to 4.15%. The resulting bounce in US Treasuries was limited to roughly 15bps.  Meanwhile, Germany's equivalent […]

The calendar pages flip. We’re in mortgage conference season again in hotels around the nation, and why not have a little fun leaving your quarters (especially when the hotel room is registered under someone else’s name, cuz you probably won’t be welcomed back)? Yes, time flies. It’s been […]

Mixed Reaction to Retail Sales Makes For a Boring Monday Despite coming in much weaker than expected, Retail Sales (the day's only big-ticket market mover) didn't provide much help for bonds. The catch was that the key internal component (the control group, […]