Tag: Ukraine

Vital Statistics:

 

	Last	Change
S&P futures	2968	-2.25
Oil (WTI)	56.35	-0.64
10 year government bond yield		1.65%
30 year fixed rate mortgage		3.91%

 

Stocks are flattish this morning despite overseas weakness and Trump Impeachment news. Bonds and MBS are flat.

 

The news that Nancy Pelosi was opening an impeachment inquiry over the Trump / Ukraine situation was a non-event market-wise. Stocks and bonds didn’t budge. Supposedly Trump will release the transcript of the call today, and will make the whistleblower available to Congress. We will see where this goes, but market-wise it will take a while to play out. Check out the chart of the S&P 500 during 1998 when the whole Bill Clinton impeachment situation was played out:

 

 

Here is a chart of the bond market during the same time period (10 year yield). Looks like we saw a drop in the 10 year of about 160 basis points peak to trough during the whole process. Note that this is a classic example of the old market saw “buy the rumor, sell the fact.” The market priced in impeachment before the votes even took place. If you got short on the votes, you got your head handed to you. If you bought the Treasury flight to safety in late summer of 98, when the whole thing was coming to a head, you were too late, and were on the wrong side of the trade by that point.

 

 

There was some slight movement in the Fed Funds futures for December, with the current odds at 22% no cut, 52%, a 25 basis point cut, and 26% chance of 50 basis points. Note that the repo market issues has been taken by the Fed that they don’t have as much leeway to shrink the balance sheet as they had anticipated.

 

Mortgage applications fell by 10% last week as purchases fell 3% and refis fell 15%. Rates were more or less flat at 4.01% last week, so the refi number is a surprise. That said, mortgage rates had risen about 20 basis points over the past few weeks, so maybe this was a catch-up phenomenon. Despite the back up in rates, the MBA estimates that 2019 will be the best year since 2016, with originations expected to hit $1.9 trillion.

 

Consumer confidence fell in September on trade fears and darkening expectations. The present conditions index fell but it was mainly future expectations that drove the decline.