Morning Report: Durable Goods orders increase

Vital Statistics;

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2836.5	-4.75
Eurostoxx index			388.69	1.55
Oil (WTI)			69.2	-0.1
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.96%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.62%

Stocks are lower after fAANG leader Facebook reported a slowdown in revenues. The stock is under severe pressure this morning, having traded down 24% last night. Bonds and MBS are flat.

As expected, the ECB kept rates unchanged and reiterated their plan to end QE this year. German Bunds are down in Europe, which is pulling US rates higher as well.

Durable goods orders rose 1%, which was lower than expected. Capital Goods orders rose 0.6%, which is better than expected. May numbers were revised upward as well. Capital Goods Orders are a proxy for business capital expenditures and it looks like we are breaching the $68 billion level where we have historically stalled out.

Initial Jobless Claims rose from a 48 year low to 217,000.

The US and the EU have come to an agreement on trade, where the Europeans will import more soybeans and LNG in exchange for an easing in auto tariffs. Euro automakers are up big this morning. They still have to come to an agreement on steel and aluminum tariffs however. Still it is good news for the markets and takes some of the pressure off.

PulteGroup reported strong earnings that beat consensus estimates. Revenues increased 25% and we saw margin expansion. New orders were only up 3%, however. Despite their strong growth, Pulte sold some land and bought back a lot of stock. Given the deceleration in new orders, it raises the question if they are sensing that the market is slowing down a little. With affordable land hard to come by, selling inventory and buying back stock in lieu of investing more in the business is a cautionary sign.

Maxine Waters (who will lead the House Financial Services Committee if Democrats take the House) said that reforming the GSEs will be a priority  Both liberals and conservatives would like to see the government less involved in residential real estate finance, and there is broad agreement on the model they would like to see. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be the demand from private capital to pick up the slack, at least not yet. The private label securitization market is still a shadow of its former self and there are many governance issues that need to be solved before we see the buy side increase their appetite.

The FHFA announced that it will not make a decision about updating the credit scoring model and instead will continue to come up with new rules. Consumer advocates have complained that FICO scores are preventing some credit-worthy borrowers from accessing mortgages. Separately, Jeb Hensarling sounded like he is being considered to replace Mel Watt.

New rules intended to prevent the serial refinancing of VA IRRRLs are creating problems for some VA loans that were originated prior to the law change. These loans are not eligible for Ginnie Mae multi-issuer pools, which effectively "orphans" them. As a result, these loans are going to be illiquid and will probably trade at scratch and dent levels, exposing some originators to big losses.