Egyptian President Mubarak surprised the world on Friday announcing that he was stepping down as President of Egypt and turning power over to the military. Just a few hours earlier he had announced his intention of remaining President until elections in September. The surprise announcement helped mortgage rates rally as his departure creates uncertainty in the region. As is typical for a Friday, lenders were very slow to pass along the price gains but many lenders did reprice for the better...

We had a up and down day in the bond market yesterday. Lender rate sheets were slightly worse at the open of trading. As the day moved along, mortgage backed securities began to rally as stocks moved lower which allowed some lenders to reprice for the better. Right at 2pm, we received a report on the U.S. monthly deficit which showed we had a larger deficit in January 2011 then we did in January 2010. Following this report, stocks moved off their lows pulling money away from the bond market...

Yesterday, the Department of Treasury auctioned $24 billion of 10 year notes. The prior day’s auction of 3 year notes was bid well, but foreign participation was extremely weak causing treasury yields and mortgage rates to rise Tuesday afternoon. The tide shifted yesterday though as the 10 year note auction saw the highest foreign participation on record. All lenders did reprice for the better after the results were released.

This morning the Department of Labor released the...

Not much to recap from yesterday. We had no economic data to hit the news wires. Mortgage rates opened similar to closing prices from Friday. After a sideways morning, mortgage backed securities began to rally right at noon and continued through close. The price gains were not substantial, but there were enough to allow lenders to reprice for the better improving consumer borrowing costs.

Like yesterday, the economic calendar is empty but we did have the first of three treasury...

Friday’s employment data gave us mixed results. The number of jobs created rose far less than expected, but the unemployment rate fell when a rise was expected. The less than expected number of jobs creates is being attributed to bad weather across much of the country. One clear trend though is the labor market is recovering and market participants took the report as good news for the economy. Once the employment data was released, the benchmark 10 year treasury note rose from 3.52% to 3.67% which...