Posted To: MND NewsWire

HUD and the Treasury Department are taking another crack at moving its foreclosure prevention efforts from concept to reality. And now it is adding "shame" to its list of weapons. The Treasury Department announced today that it intends to increase pressure on lenders and servicers to move borrowers from trial loan modifications into actual restructured loans. The action comes amid reports that the administration's $75 billion Making Homes Affordable Program (HAMP) is floundering. While the government has been trumpeting the success of the trial modification program - some 650,000 troubled borrowers had entered the program by the end of October - only a very small percentage of those borrowers have transitioned into a permanent loan modification. It is estimated that November figures...(read more)

Posted To: MBS Commentary

After more volatile morning movements, MBS have improved in a very narrow range into the afternoon with the 4.5 up 3 ticks from Friday's close to 101-19. Closing at this level would constitute an all time high. Tsy's meanwhile had been negative almost all morning, but as you can see in the chart below, 10yr yields broke through 3.215 and used that same level as support to make an assault on the lowest yields since May at 3.20. If yields find reason to drop below 3.2, there wouldn't be any informative resistance until May's low at 3.12. As such, we wouldn't expect to see a meaningful push lower in yields into the 3pm marking Stocks have continued to "play ball" with bond rallies with both the S&P and Dow slightly negative on the day. The S&P had gone as...(read more)