Morning Report - lots of conflicting data

Morning Report

	Last	Change	Percent
S&P Futures	1881.2	-4.1	-0.22%
Eurostoxx Index	3195.1	-15.4	-0.48%
Oil (WTI)	101.9	-0.5	-0.44%
LIBOR	0.226	0.001	0.22%
US Dollar Index (DXY)	80.23	0.152	0.19%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield	2.51%	-0.03%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA	107	0.3
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA	105.6	0.1
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage	4.17

Markets are lower this morning after Wal-Mart missed. Bonds and MBS are up.

Very mixed bag of economic data this morning:

• Empire Manufacturing 19.01 vs 6 expected (indicates strong economy)
• Consumer Price Index .3 vs .3 expected (doesn't tell you anything)
• Initial Jobless Claims 297k vs 320k expected (great number - indicates strong economy)
• Industrial Production down .6% vs expectations of flat (lousy number - indicates weakness)
• Capacity Utilization of 78.6% vs 79.1% (hideous number - indicates weakness)

FWIW, the bond market is taking its cue from the weak industrial numbers and the Wal-Mart miss. Speaking of which - the 10 year bond yield is now pushing 2.5% - LOs if you have any customers who missed their chance to refi last fall, wake them up. The market just let them back in. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Stonegate Mortgage released their earnings this morning, and they missed on the top line and the bottom line.

Stonegate has been an acquisitive company, so doing apples-to-apples comparisons in order to divine organic growth is difficult. They wrote down their MSR book by $8 million. They have a conference call at 11:00 am (877) 303-5863 if people are interested.. The stock is down a few percent on the open.

FHA is looking for ways to expand credit and has unveiled its "Blueprint for Access." It is a designed to first time homebuyers, where the borrower goes through a counseling program before buying a home. If they complete the program, they get 50 bps off their upfront FHA mortgage insurance premium and receive a 10 bp reduction in their annual FHA mortgage insurance premium. If they have no serious DQs in their first two years, they get an additional 15 bp reduction in MIP fees. More info will be released in the summer and fall.