MBS – The Daily Tearsheet

Morning Report: GSE reform

Vital Statistics:

	Last	Change
S&P futures	2981	9.25
Oil (WTI)	55.12	-1.14
10 year government bond yield		1.57
30 year fixed rate mortgage		3.74%

Stocks are higher this morning after the jobs report. Bonds and MBS are flat.

Jobs report data dump:

Nonfarm payrolls up 130,000, lower than expectations, and the ADP report
Unemployment rate 3.7%, unchanged
Labor force participation rate 63.2%, unchanged
Employment-population ratio 60.9%
Average hourly earnings up 0.4% MOM / 3.2% YOY, above expectations

Overall, a disappointing report given the big ADP number, but the ADP generally predicts the final numbers, which means this data probably gets revised upwards. The employment-population ratio continued to edge up, which is good, although we still are nowhere near pre-crisis levels. This indicates that wage growth will remain in a Goldilocks range: enough to beat inflation, but not too hot to worry the Fed.

The Trump Administration released its GSE reform plan. The plan states that ” the existing Government support of the secondary market should be explicitly defined, tailored, and paid-for, and the GSEs’ conservatorships should come to an end, subject to the preconditions set forth in this plan.” The government’s guarantee should “stand behind significant first-loss private capital and would be triggered only in exigent circumstances.” “Single-family guarantors should be required to maintain a nationwide cash window through which small lenders can sell loans for cash, and also should be prohibited from offering volume-based pricing discounts or other incentives to their lender clients.” The government support for the GSEs under the preferred stock purchase agreement would be replaced with an explicit, paid for guarantee backed by the US government for paying principal and interest on MBS. The plan would end (or at least modify) the “net worth sweep” which would allow the GSEs to rebuild capital. The GSEs would still have a role to promote affordable housing. FNMA stock is looking down about 6% on the open.

Michael Burry, of The Big Short fame, sees a bubble in indexing and passive investment ETFs. Passive investments now account for half of the stock market as more investors pile into these low-fee investment vehicles. “Trillions of dollars in assets globally are indexed to these stocks,” Burry said. “The theater keeps getting more crowded, but the exit door is the same as it always was. All this gets worse as you get into even less liquid equity and bond markets globally.” Certainly the leveraged ETFs – the triple long and triple short types – will become hopelessly illiquid in a market distortion. Burry runs a hedge fund, so he is talking his book a little but like all investment crazes, the more money that goes into the asset class, the more marginal each incremental trade becomes. Eventually, you might see a return to active stock management as they begin to outperform, especially small caps.

Morning Report: No changes to GDP

Vital Statistics:

	Last	Change
S&P futures	2926.25	8.25
Oil (WTI)	59.03	-.35
10 year government bond yield		2.02%
30 year fixed rate mortgage		4.02%

Stocks are higher this morning on news that the US and China will resume trade talks over the weekend. Bonds and MBS are flat.

The third revision to first quarter GDP was unchanged, coming in at 3.1%. Inflation was revised upward ever so slightly, from a core PCE rate of 1% to 1.2%. At this stage of the game, the markets are going to focus on weak economic data, not inflation data. Note the Atlanta Fed is forecasting that second quarter GDP will come in at 1.9%.

Initial Jobless Claims remain low, rising slightly to 227,000.

Donald Trump continues to criticize Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, even going as far as to tweet that ECB President Mario Draghi is better. While it is unlikely Trump would try and fire Powell (or demote him), the legal principle of Fed independence will probably make that difficult.

The VA will now guarantee loans that exceed the conforming loan limit. Veterans will be able to borrow above the $484,350 limit without any down payment. This impetus for this decision was to raise money for veterans who have health issues after being exposed to Agent Orange. The initial idea was to raise the VA loan fee by 15 basis points, however lawmakers decided to raise the funds by increasing the cap.

A new report by Barclay’s and Annaly Mortgage lays out a post-conservatorship world for the US residential real estate finance market. Lawmakers generally agree on the goals of housing reform: protect the US taxpayer, attract private capital, and create a more competitive landscape. Getting there is going to be more difficult as Democrats and Republicans have different priorities. The report looks at things the Administration could do unilaterally via executive order. The first would involve FHFA ordering the GSEs out of non-core markets, such as second homes, jumbo and investor loans. The second would involve the creation of a revolving credit risk transfer facility. A third would involve removing the “GSE patch” which allows Fannie and Fred to originate QM loans at DTI levels private lenders cannot. Finally, there is work that needs to be done at the SEC / SIFMA level that concerns private label securitizations. Ultimately the issue of what to be done with GSEs will have to be solved legislatively. Either they become converted to Federal Government utilities or they become privatized. The privatization route envisions breaking up the duopoly into much smaller guarantors.

Morning Report: GDP comes in stronger than expected

Vital Statistics:

	Last	Change
S&P futures	2691	21.65
Eurostoxx index	356.69	4.38
Oil (WTI)	67.32	-0.28
10 year government bond yield		3.10%
30 year fixed rate mortgage		4.93%

Stocks are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.

The 10% retracement level in the S&P 500 held on Friday and bond yields were around 3.08 when sitting at that level. As usual, MBS lagged the moves in the bond markets, waiting for confirmation.

The first estimate for third quarter GDP came in at 3.5%, which was higher than the 3.3% Street estimate. Consumption was strong, but investment growth came in weaker than previous quarters. The biggest hit to GDP came from trade, which subtracted an estimated 1.8 percentage points from the number as exports fell, while imports were largely unaffected by tariffs. As usual, housing was a weak spot.

Housing economist Robert Shiller notes that housing is weak, however he believes we aren’t looking at another huge slowdown. Housing never fully recovered from the bubble, and inventory is tight. While prices have recouped the losses from the bubble years, we are nowhere near bubble territory.

We do have some data this week, with productivity and costs, personal incomes and outlays and the jobs report on Friday. That said, bonds seem to be reacting to the movements in the stock market these days, so it is hard to say these will be market-moving reports.

Credit card companies are beginning to restrict credit, or at least pull back the reins a little. Capital One’s CEO believes “the economy is almost too good to be true,” and is beginning to lower credit limits. Credit card issuers are usually the first to react to a tightening in credit, so this bears watching.