On Dec 9th we discussed on this blog the
“cornucopia’ of economic data during the prior week pointing to Fed Tapering in
the near term and advised investors to await further confirmation via both data
and “Fed-speak”. Today, as of now, we have/will receive both.
This morning we received Housing Starts for Sept, Oct and
Nov as we had been having a blackout on this statistic for the past 3
months. Housing Starts for November crossed the psychologically important
1MM mark, up 23.5% from the last published value in August! With mortgage
rates now above 4%, this puts to rest the FOMC’s fears in September about "Tapering" too soon. Mortgage rates have now risen +100bps since the Fed
first suggested in 2Q13 that "Tapering" may begin prior to year-end and the
housing market has now proven robust in the face of such higher housing costs.
Treasury yields have risen about +10bps since the release of
strong economic data earlier this month. However mortgage spreads have
tightened about an equal amount. Clearly investors are handicapping a near-term
Tapering of Fed QE and are expecting it to be biased more toward the Treasury
market than in mortgages. Mortgages today are performing extremely well
across the coupon stack. Mortgages are up slightly stronger in the belly
of the stack and slightly stronger in 30 year mortgages versus 15 years.
FNCL, FGLMC and GNMA 4s are leading the way, each up about +7 to +8 ticks as
of this writing (1:00pm).
At 2:00pm there is a risk that the Fed announcement could
disappoint investors. However we expect a strong upward bias in Treasury
yields and rally in mortgage yield spreads to Treasuries should the Fed
announce a "Tapering", or an intention to soon "Taper", its QE program more biased
toward Treasuries than mortgages.
Tradex Global Advisory Services, LLC
investorrelations@thetradexgroup.com
203-863-1500
@Tradex_Global
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