Morning Report - mortgage lenders more optimistic about 2015

Vital Statistics:

	Last	Change	Percent
S&P Futures	2095.6	13.0	0.63%
Eurostoxx Index	3671.4	2.9	0.08%
Oil (WTI)	44.57	0.4	1.01%
LIBOR	0.269	-0.001	-0.30%
US Dollar Index (DXY)	99.08	0.530	0.54%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield	1.94%	0.02%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA	103	0.0
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA	102.1	-0.1
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage	3.82

Markets are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.

Slow news day.

There is no economic data this morning and much of the Street will be exiting early ahead of yet another snowstorm. 

Now that we no longer can rely on housing equity extraction to fund consumption, the correlation coefficient between spending and wages is higher than ever.  One more reason why the Fed will probably not begin raising rates too aggressively until we start seeing real wage growth. As of now, we are seeing about 2% annual wage growth versus slightly below 2% inflation. So real wages are in fact growing, just not by much. 

Mortgage lenders are more optimistic about 2015 than mortgage consumers, according to the Fannie Mae quarterly survey of lender sentiment.