Uneventful Fed Day, Bonds Eventually Agree

Uneventful Fed Day, Bonds Eventually Agree

There's never a way to know with certainty that a Fed announcement will be uneventful, but if we had to assign relative probabilities, today's looked much more likely than normal to pass without a trace. In the immediate wake of the announcement, that didn't look like it was going to happen. Bonds sold quickly due to what seemed to be a notable verbiage change.  Then in the press conference, Powell clarified the verbiage change and bonds unwound their initial reaction. MBS and Treasuries thus ended the day perfectly in line with pre-Fed levels, like it never even happened.  

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Uneventful Fed Day, Bonds Eventually Agree

MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.5 99.02 +0.09 10YR 4.524% -0.016% 1/30/2025 4:54AM EST
Powell addressed confusion over the policy statement text, basically saying it was only an attempt to shorten a sentence and not to send a signal on inflation.  While there's no real way to reconcile the omission of the phrase "inflation has made progress toward the committee's 2 percent objective," markets were willing to take Powell's word for it.  Thus began a steady move back toward the levels in place just before the 2pm Fed announcement.  MBS are down ...   READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed 7.05% -0.01% 15YR Fixed 6.47% -0.01% 1/30/2025
Heading into today's Fed announcement, we didn't expect to receive any significant surprise on the stance of monetary policy.  Financial markets had long since ruled out the possibility of a rate cut and we knew Powell could only really acknowledge recent progress in inflation data while maintaining that more progress is needed for additional rate cuts.  In not so many words, that's exactly what happened. In so many words, there was a bit of back and forth in the ...   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Wednesday, Jan 29
7:00AM Jan/24 MBA Mortgage Applications Jan/24 -2% 0.1%
7:00AM Jan/24 MBA 30-yr mortgage rate (%) Jan/24 7.02% 7.02%
7:00AM Jan/24 MBA Purchase Index Jan/24 162.4 163
7:00AM Jan/24 MBA Refi Index Jan/24 520.9 558.8
7:00AM Jan/24 Mortgage Market Index Jan/24 220.0 224.6
8:30AM Dec Retail Inventories Ex Autos MoM Adv Dec 0.2% 0.5%
8:30AM Dec Wholesale inventories mm (%) Dec -0.5% 0.2% -0.2%
8:30AM Dec Goods Trade Balance Adv Dec $-122.11B $-105.4B $-102.86B
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Gasoline Stocks Change Jan/24 2.957M 1.5M 2.332M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Gasoline Production Change Jan/24 -0.044M -0.043M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Distillate Fuel Production Change Jan/24 0.028M -0.473M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Distillate Stocks Change Jan/24 -4.994M -2.1M -3.07M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Cushing Crude Oil Stocks Change Jan/24 0.326M -0.148M
10:30AM Jan/24 Crude Oil Inventory (ml) Jan/24 3.463M 3.2M -1.017M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Crude Oil Imports Change Jan/24 0.532M 0.184M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Heating Oil Stocks Change Jan/24 0.128M 0.068M
10:30AM Jan/24 EIA Refinery Crude Runs Change Jan/24 -0.333M -1.125M
11:30AM 17-Week Bill Auction (%) 4.190% 4.205%
2:00PM Fed Interest Rate Decision 4.5% 4.5% 4.5%
2:30PM Fed Press Conference
2:30PM Powell Press Conference
Thursday, Jan 30
8:30AM Q4 GDP Final Sales (%) Q4 3.2% 3.3%
8:30AM Q4 GDP deflator (%) Q4 2.2% 2.5% 1.9%
8:30AM Q4 GDP (%) Q4 2.3% 2.6% 3.1%
8:30AM Jan/25 Jobless claims 4-wk avg (k) Jan/25 212.5K 213.5K
8:30AM Q4 Real Consumer Spending QoQ Final Q4 4.2% 3.7%
8:30AM Q4 PCE Prices QoQ Final Q4 2.3% 1.5%
8:30AM Jan/25 Jobless Claims (k) Jan/25 207K 220K 223K
8:30AM Q4 Core PCE Prices QoQ Final Q4 2.5% 2.5% 2.2%
8:30AM Jan/18 Continued Claims (ml) Jan/18 1858K 1890K 1899K
10:00AM Dec Pending Home Sales YoY Dec -5.0% 6.9%
10:00AM Dec Pending Home Sales (%) Dec -5.5% 0% 2.2%
10:30AM Jan/24 Nat gas-EIA, change bcf Jan/24 -321B -313Bcf -233Bcf
11:30AM 4-Week Bill Auction 4.250% 4.265%
11:30AM 8-Week Bill Auction 4.240% 4.250%
12:00PM Jan/30 15-Year Mortgage Rate Jan/30 6.12% 6.16%
12:00PM Jan/30 30-Year Mortgage Rate Jan/30 6.95% 6.96%
4:30PM Jan/29 Central Bank Balance Sheet Jan/29 $6.83T
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It turned out to be an intensely boring week for mortgage rates. The average lender stayed right in line with last week until moving slightly higher on Thursday and slightly lower on Friday.   This isn't too much of a surprise. Rates are driven by bonds and bonds are most easily influenced by major economic reports--something in extremely short supply this week.  Next week bri... READ MORE