http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/ Mortgage News Daily https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:51:07 GMT 6a3ef570a6791958c5233557 Matthew Graham Early Gains. Flat Afternoon. MBS Underperform Friday ended up offering a boring conclusion to a week that had at least some measure of excitement on Wednesday. Bonds started a hair stronger, lost ground modestly and then rallied to the day's best levels by noon. From there, 10yr yields went perfectly sideways in an ultra narrow range. MBS managed to hang on to just barely positive levels but gave up about an eighth of a point during the time Treasuries were holding steady. Technically, this is underperformance in a vacuum, but in the bigger picture, MBS have been doing just fine in relative terms. As a reminder, next week is 3.5 days thanks to Independence Day observance, and the jobs report will be on Thursday morning.  Market Movement Recap 09:04 AM Stronger overnight, but bouncing back a bit now. 10yr up 0.3bps and MBS unchanged. 12:04 PM Near strongest levels. MBS up an eighth and 10yr down 1.8bps at 4.373 04:29 PM Off strongest levels in MBS, now up only 2 ticks (.06). 10yr down 1.9bps at 4.372 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 19:06:00 GMT 6a3ecee17f19115eae0e9257 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates officially hit their lowest level in more than a month yesterday with MND's 30yr fixed index falling to 6.53% from 6.55% on Wednesday. Today was completely unchanged at 6.53%, thus maintaining the lowest level since May 14th, 2026.  There weren't any dramatic developments behind the scenes in term of economic data or news headlines (not that we'd expect them when rates hold perfectly flat). This week's broader improvement can be attributed to buying demand in the bond market owing to large investors rebalancing their stock/bond portfolios before the end of the quarter. As the quarter officially ends early next week, new volatility could emerge. It could be further compounded by the more active slate of economic data culminating in Thursday's big jobs report--the biggest economic report on any given month. NOTE: the jobs report would normally be out on a Friday, but next Friday is the holiday observance for the 4th of July.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-new-home-sales Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:58:00 GMT 6a3ecd856c212214ed223427 Matthew Graham New home sales weakened further in May, extending the pullback seen over the past several months as elevated mortgage rates and affordability pressures continued to weigh on buyer demand. According to the latest Census Bureau and HUD data, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 580,000 , down 7.3% from April and 6.8% from a year earlier. Inventory continued to build, with the number of new homes for sale rising to 496,000 , up 2.3% from April, though still 1.4% below May 2025 levels. At the current sales pace, that left months' supply at 10.3 months , up from 9.3 months in April and 9.7 months one year ago. Home prices moved higher in May. The median sales price increased to $424,900 , up 2.0% from April and essentially unchanged from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the average sales price rose sharply to $540,600 , a 7.8% monthly increase and 5.0% above May 2025 levels. While the chart above is potentially alarming at first glance, it's always worth remembering 2 things: 1. New Home Sales data is notoriously choppy month to month, and prone to sometimes significant revisions. 2. Existing Home Sales run at an annual pace over 4 million (compared to New Home Sales at just under 600k), and they've been trending modestly higher in the past few months.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-mortgage-applications-mba Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:55:00 GMT 6a3ecbae6c212214ed223424 Matthew Graham Mortgage applications posted a modest increase last week, though overall activity remained subdued by historical standards as borrowing costs held relatively steady. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 1.0% increase in total application volume on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending June 19. Refinance activity provided most of the support for the weekly gain. The Refinance Index increased 3% from the previous week and was 17% higher than the same period one year ago. Purchase demand slipped slightly but continued to hold above year-ago levels. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1% from the prior week, while remaining 3% higher than the same week in 2025. “Mortgage rates changed little over the course of last week, despite the more hawkish tone from the FOMC at its June meeting,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s SVP and chief economist. “Purchase application volume edged slightly lower, while refinance activity posted modest gains. Despite the elevated mortgage rates and overall economic uncertainty, mortgage application volume is running 8 percent above year-ago levels.” Refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 41.5% from 40.3%, while the ARM share declined to 8.2% from 8.5%. Government-backed application shares were mixed. FHA share increased to 17.9% from 17.5%, while VA share decreased to 12.3% from 12.9%. USDA share rose to 0.5% from 0.4%. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-housing-starts-building-permits-new-residenti Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:29:00 GMT 6a3eca5c7f19115eae0e9254 Matthew Graham Residential construction activity cooled in May, as housing starts and completions both moved lower while building permits edged down only slightly. Last week's Census Bureau data suggests builders are still navigating uneven demand and affordability pressures, with a sharper pullback in starts than in permits. Privately owned housing starts fell 15.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.177 million , down from April’s revised 1.392 million pace. Starts were also 8.7% below their May 2025 level. Single-family starts slipped 1.9% to 882k, while starts for units in buildings with five units or more dropped to 284k. While that represents the lowest level of housing starts since 2020, building permits changed very little. Total building permits fell 0.7% to an annual rate of 1.413 million , just 0.2% below the year-ago pace. Single-family permits edged 0.6% higher to 886k, while multifamily authorizations came in at 474k. Another silver lining for single-family construction is that the drop in housing starts was primarily a factor of one of the largest single month drops in multifamily housing starts... ever. This is such an aberrant spike in the data that we'd hesitate to read too much into it unless the numbers remain similarly low in coming months (especially given 2+ years of slow, steady upward movement). Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:10:57 GMT 6a3e73a6e85c3c39a4a8a0a4 Rob Chrisman We know that a) Congress passed a housing bill which, if not signed within 10 days, becomes law anyway, and b) U.S. presidents are known to be candid. Once again, we see the intersection of housing, lending, and politics with not only the postponement by the President of signing the bill, but also the statement of his alleged opinion about housing. The signing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, was called off just hours before it was set to begin. In a social media post, President Trump said he would not sign the housing package until Congress makes progress on separate election legislation, the SAVE America Act, which he has described as “a national emergency.” Attorney Troy Garris gives us the options on what happens next. Meanwhile, thank you to Kenneth S. who pointed out that Sheila Bair (as the head of the FDIC a central figure in the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis and who warned about the risky mortgage lending practices that precipitated it) is warning that today’s crop of financial regulators are forgetting the lessons of that painful saga by weakening banks’ capital buffers, which act as fortifications against unpredictable losses and are intended to ward off potential taxpayer bailouts. Stay tuned. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Equifax, a global data, analytics, and technology company, helps mortgage lenders gain the borrower and market insights they need to improve efficiency and make accurate decisions. Access differentiated consumer credit data, powerful consumer and market insights, and income and employment data from The Work Number. Today’s has an Interview with Equifax’s Justin Demola on how rising credit costs, higher borrower fallout rates, and inefficient credit-pull strategies are increasing origination expenses, making it critical for lenders to manage credit usage more strategically while leveraging reforms to improve efficiency and reduce costs.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-morning-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:01:54 GMT 6a3e9558a6791958c5227b2b Matthew Graham Q2 has been one of the best quarters for stocks going all the way back to the dot com boom, even after the 4-5% pullback in June. This has created a massive quarter-end rebalancing need among money managers and we've seen that random volatility play out in both stocks and bonds over the past few weeks. As the quarter wraps up in the next 3 business days, this could continue to drive volatility, but hopefully/probably less than it did earlier this week. Bonds are starting out roughly unchanged and have little else to focus on thanks to an uneventful economic calendar. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-06252026 Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:27:01 GMT 6a3d9004a6791958c520ab72 Matthew Graham Mostly Holding Yesterday's Big Gains Bonds began the day in modestly weaker territory, but not weak enough to take 10yr yields above the 4.42% technical level. That was a notable development even before considering subsequent movement. The 8:30am PCE inflation data made room for a friendly reversal with modest losses being replaced by modest improvement. Bonds ultimately weren't able to hang onto the stronger levels seen in the morning with gradual selling in the late AM hours and another little pop of weakness following headlines that Iran had attacked a cargo ship in The Strait (not a U.S. ship, or the reaction would likely have been bigger). Bottom line: today failed to place an exclamation point on yesterday's rally, but it still wasn't a question mark. The only caveat is that quarter-end volatility is still a risk between now and Tuesday. Econ Data / Events Continued Claims (Jun)/13 1821.0K vs 1800K f'cast, 1810K prev Core CapEx (May) 1.6% vs 0.6% f'cast, -1.1% prev Core PCE (m/m) (May) 0.3% vs 0.3% f'cast, 0.2% prev Core PCE (y/y) (May) 3.4% vs 3.4% f'cast, 3.3% prev Durable goods (May) -4.5% vs -4.5% f'cast, 7.9% prev GDPQ1 2.1% vs 1.6% f'cast, 0.5% prev Jobless Claims (Jun)/20 215.0K vs 225K f'cast, 226K prev PCE (y/y) (May) 4.1% vs 4.1% f'cast, 3.8% prev PCE prices (m/m) (May) 0.4% vs 0.5% f'cast, 0.4% prev Market Movement Recap 08:49 AM Decent gains after PCE comes in on target. MBS up 6 ticks (.19) and 10yr down 1.2bps at 4.375 11:00 AM MBS up an eighth and 10yr down just under 1bp at 4.379 01:41 PM MBS still up an eighth but 10yr now down only 0.3bps at 4.384 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-06252026 Thu, 25 Jun 2026 17:45:00 GMT 6a3d6aa68a4dd6d6cf58e804 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates had a great day yesterday, moving within 0.01% of the lowest levels in more than a month. They dropped just a bit more today and are now officially the lowest they've been since May 14th.  Today's improvement was more of an afterthought, but nonetheless helps legitimize yesterday's heavy lifting as something other than a freak coincidence. The only word of caution is that the last few weeks of any given quarter can see elevated volatility in a random pattern due to considerations in the trading world (mortgages are ultimately based on trading levels in the bond market). In terms of nuts and bolts, bonds got today's modest boost after PCE inflation data came in on target. This doesn't seem like something that should spark a reaction, but the "target" is merely a median forecast. Some traders may have been expecting hotter inflation and were thus willing to buy a few bonds when those fears didn't materialize.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-06252026 Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:18:22 GMT 6a3d229cae2f637ae68bac1f Rob Chrisman Around the country, originators seem less focused on the housing bill signing ceremony postponement than on “opportunity.” There are opportunities, but not for every LO. There is the opportunity (and goal) of senior management to make their company immune from economic and world political turmoil. There is the opportunity to anchor the business to things that you can control, not to things that you can’t… like rates. Yesterday at the Mastermind Summit, Ryan Grant observed, “MLOs have the opportunity to hand a potential borrower a pre-approval letter in minutes but then explain to that borrower, ‘Here’s why that’s not enough.’” There’s always the opportunity to look at other products. For example, a "Renovation HELOC Index" was launched. There are opportunities. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Equifax, a global data, analytics, and technology company, helps mortgage lenders gain the borrower and market insights they need to improve efficiency and make accurate decisions. Access differentiated consumer credit data, powerful consumer and market insights, and income and employment data from The Work Number. Today’s has an interview with Alston & Bird's Stephen Ornstein on all things RESPA, as well as how regulation needs to be improved for the modern times we live in.) Broker and Lender Software, Products, and Services Still working to understand what’s driving your margins in today’s volatile mortgage market? Optimal Blue’s CompassEdge hedging and loan trading platform is designed to bring more clarity to capital markets decisions, with embedded AI that helps teams interpret performance, identify potential risks, and surface next steps. Rather than relying on disconnected tools and manual workflows, your team can work within a more unified environment that connects pricing, hedging, and loan sale execution from lock through sale. Move faster, reduce manual work, and execute with confidence while capturing more value across every loan. With intuitive dashboards, automated processes, and real-time market alignment, CompassEdge can help you protect margins in any market. Ready to replace uncertainty with insight and turn decisions into consistent results? Discover how Optimal Blue CompassEdge can transform your execution today for your entire team. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full