All Things in Moderation

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are lower this morning despite a deal on the fiscal stimulus bill. Bonds and MBS are up. The Fed will be continuing its normal $50 billion in MBS purchses this morning.

Congress came to a deal on a stimulus bill which aims to ease as much of the economic shock from Coronavirus as it can. Most Americans will get a $1,200 check, small businesses will get $367 billion in relief and state / local governments will get $500 billion in loans. Unemployed workers will get an additional $600 a week up to 4 months.

Trump says that he wants the “country opened” by Easter in order to salvage the US economy. The idea would be to re-open restaurants and in-person employment in the non-hotspots. Needless to say, health experts are aghast at the idea, and yes, health concerns are a concern. They aren’t the only concern. Of course state governments are going to have the last word on that as well.

A consortium of originators, credit agencies and lobbyists sent a letter to the government discussing relief for homeowners affected by Coronavirus. The idea would be to allow people affected by the crisis to defer mortgage payments for 90 days without interest or penalties. The missed payments would essentially be added to the final payments of the mortgage without interest. Of course servicers are on the hook for the advances, and non-bank servicers don’t have the liquidity to make these advances. The group urges the government to provide some sort of borrowing facility for non-bank servicers to draw upon to make the these additional payments.

The Coronavirus has impacted commercial mortgage backed securities as well. As businesses shut down, they can’t make their mortgage payments. This means that the mortgages securing the complex are having issues. Lots of small business owners are combing over the force majure clauses in their contracts right now. For mortgage bankers, this is an issue because the same folks that buy CMBS often buy RMBS. To make matters worse, some of the biggest buyers of mortgage backed are sovereign wealth funds, and with less goods coming from overseas, the less demand for MBS from foreign funds. The Fed will purchase agency CMBS with the help of Blackrock.

Mortgage Applications fell 29% last week as rate spiked and bottlenecks in the mortgage market increased. “The 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached its highest level since mid-January last week, even as Treasury yields remained at relatively low levels. Several factors pushed rates higher, including increased secondary market volatility, lenders grappling with capacity issues and backlogs in their pipelines, and remote work staffing challenges,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “With these higher rates, refinance activity fell 34 percent, and both the conventional and government indices dropped to their lowest level in a month. Looking ahead, this week’s additional actions taken by the Federal Reserve to restore liquidity and stabilize the mortgage-backed securities market could put downward pressure on mortgage rates, allowing more homeowners the opportunity to refinance.”

Have been hearing that Fannie cash window pricing was 50 – 200 basis points wider yesterday. FHA rates have been getting smashed on the basically worthless servicing value. Every co-issue partner is on hiatus. Tough to manage a pipeline when the bids for your loans are lower and the NY Fed is pushing your hedge inexorably higher which is driving margin calls. I keep saying the mortgage banking business will feast once this is over, but we gotta get to the table first.

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