| Last | Change | |
| S&P Futures | 2111.5 | -5.0 |
| Eurostoxx Index | 340.7 | -5.0 |
| Oil (WTI) | 44.9 | -1.0 |
| US dollar index | 86.5 | 0.3 |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.68% | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103.3 | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104.2 | |
| 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 3.48 |
Stocks are weaker this morning as global markets continue the sell-off that began on Friday. Bonds and MBS are lower.
Dennis Lockhart is speaking this morning, and said that it is time to have a serious discussion about raising rates. Neel Kashkari and Lael Brainard will be speaking later on today. That should be the end of Fed-speak until the FOMC meeting later this month. Fed Funds futures are now signalling a 60% chance of a rate hike by the end of the year.
So far it appears that mortgage rates are lagging the move up in sovereign yields. The same thing happened after the taper tantrum in 2013. The 10 year bottomed in spring, while mortgage rates kept falling and didn't start rising until fall.
Donald Trump went after Janet Yellen and monetary policy, accusing the Fed of being political to protect Obama's legacy. FWIW, it seems like there is a change in the consensus over ZIRP and whether it is causing more problems than it is solving. Not too long ago, such comments would have been treated with "How dare you!" kvetching by the press.
Certainly you are seeing the change in consensus overseas, as foreign bond markets have been selling off over the past week, with the German Bund now trading with a positive yield. Even the Japanese bond market is heading lower. Deutsche Bank lays out the scenarios going forward.
The chart below (courtesy of Deutsche Bank) looks at overvaluation / undervaluation of various asset classes over a two centuries. Bonds are extremely overvalued (we know that already), but ZIRP has also caused overvaluation in stocks and real estate, which should unwind as rates start going up. Best case scenario: a situation like the post WWII era where rates gradually crept up over the course of a few decades. Of course currencies were linked to gold back then.. Today, we are on the PhD standard where the value of paper is based on the relative value of other paper.
It is almost as if global bond markets jumped the shark last week when Sanofi and Henkel were able to issue corporate debt at negative yields.
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