Morning Report: Changes afoot at the CFPB

Vital Statistics:

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2774	1.75
Eurostoxx index			386.72	-0.16
Oil (WTI)			65.25	0.52
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.98%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.58%

Stocks are higher this morning as trade tensions with China ease. Bonds and MBS are lower.

Initial Jobless Claims fell to 222k last week. We are still bouncing around lows that we haven't seen since the Vietnam War. 

Changes are afoot at the CFPB. First, Mick Mulvaney dismissed all 25 members of the Consumer Advisory Board in order to cut costs and increase the diversity of voices. The Community Bank Advisory Board and the Credit Union Advisory Board were also terminated. Apparently, these committees were traveling to DC on taxpayer expense. Many of these people are simply professional political activists in the business of raising money for liberal candidates, and were often given funds from settlements - in other words, it was a bit of a political money-laundering operation. So, there is no reason for an agency under a Republican Administration to fund the Democratic political machine. Also, the Obama / Cordray CFPB was one-sided - they listened only to consumer advocates and had zero interest in input from the industry. For better or worse, you make better policy when you have input from the people who will be affected by your rules and regulations. 

Separately, the CFPB is prepared to dismiss its case against PHH. The PHH case is a tricky one, where the CFPB unilaterally increased a judge's $6 million penalty to $106 million. PHH won a big victory last January when an appeals court threw out the judgement. There structure of the Agency was also brought into question during this case, which helps explain why the CFPB is anxious to make this case go away. 

Independent mortgage bankers lost money on average in the first quarter, according to the MBA. Net production losses were $118 per loan (or about 8 basis points). The last time we saw something similar was the first quarter in 2014. The first quarter is always a seasonally weak period.  Declining volumes, increasing costs, and thinner margins are driving the losses. Net secondary marketing income was more or less flat, and purchases accounted for 71% of the volume. Pull-through rates fell to 70% from 74% in the fourth quarter. Production expenses and personnel expenses increased quite a bit, to almost $9,000 a loan. That number has been closer to $6,200 since 2008. Productivity also fell to 1.9 loans per employee from 2 loans in the fourth quarter. 

Chinese money has been pushing up real estate prices in many cities, from Vancouver to Seattle, to Sydney. Local governments are finding more and more of their citizens are being priced out of the market and are trying to do something about it. In Vancouver, prices were appreciating at an annual rate of 30% before the government imposed a foreign investments tax. The money then left and moved to Toronto. Ultimately probably nothing will change until the Chinese real estate bubble bursts, and no one has any idea when that will happen. One thing is for sure, however. When the bubble does burst, these cities will get hit first. In a financial crisis, you sell what you can, not what you want to. 

How easy is credit these days? Twitter is offering $1 billion in convertible bonds paying 25 basis points of interest that convert into Twitter stock at a 44% premium to the current share price. That is as close to free money as you are going to get. 

Apparently the market cap of the FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) is now higher than the GDP of Germany. Most crowded trade since the Nifty 50 in the 1970s.