Interest Rates SkyRocket in One Day!

Things got ugly yesterday! If your sitting on the fence thinking rates are getting better, think again!

Mortgage-Bond Yields Jump, Jeopardizing Fed’s Housing Effort 
By Jody Shenn

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage bonds rose for a fourth day, after yesterday for the first time exceeding where they stood before the Federal Reserve announced it would expand purchases to drive down loan rates. 

Yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30- year fixed-rate mortgage bonds climbed to 4.51 percent as of 2:17 p.m. in New York, the highest since Dec. 5 and up from 3.94 percent on May 20, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The Fed, seeking to use lower home-loan rates to stem the housing slump and bolster consumers, said March 18 it would increase its planned purchases of so-called agency mortgage bonds by $750 billion, to as much as $1.25 trillion, and start buying government notes. Rising mortgage-bond yields, driven higher in part by climbing Treasury rates, means the Fed now “faces a challenge to its ability to sustain low mortgage rates,” according to Jeffrey Rosenberg at Bank of America Corp. 

“Market participants may be asking themselves the same question as Scorpio in ‘Dirty Harry’: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ ” Rosenberg , the bank’s head of credit strategy research in New York , wrote in a report yesterday, referring to a character in the 1971 Clint Eastwood film who may be shot. 

Crashing U.S. home prices have fueled the first global recession since World War II. The Fed may need to again adjust its mortgage-bond buying, after initially announcing the program in November, or boost its purchases of Treasuries, Rosenberg said. Home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas fell more than forecast in March, declining 18.7 percent from a year earlier, according to an S&P/Case Shiller index released yesterday. 

Decline in Rates 

The average rate on a typical 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.82 percent in the week ended May 21, according to a survey by McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac. Rates are down from 6.46 percent in late October, and up from a record low of 4.78 percent in the first and last weeks of April. 

Yields on agency mortgage bonds are now guiding rates on almost all new U.S. home lending following the collapse of the non-agency market in 2007 and retreats by banks. The almost $5 trillion market includes securities guaranteed by government- controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and bonds of government- backed loans guaranteed by federal agency Ginnie Mae. 

“Capacity constraints” at lenders dealing with increased mortgage applications since December have caused the rates offered to borrowers to be higher in relationship to the bonds yields than in the past, according to Bank of America and Credit Suisse Group analysts. That suggests loan rates may not initially rise as yields do. 

Yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries have climbed to 3.67 percent today, a six-month high, from 2.54 percent on March 18 and a low this month of 3.09 percent on May 14. 

Narrowing Spreads 

Rates have jumped amid concern that record Treasury sales will test demand as U.S. bailout and stimulus spending stems deflation while adding to the nation’s debt burden, and as investors shift from the safe haven of government notes as prices of other assets climb as some economists say the recession is easing. 

The difference between yields on Fannie Mae’s current- coupon 30-year fixed-rate mortgage bonds and 10-year Treasuries has narrowed to 0.79 percentage point today, from as high as 2.38 percentage points in March 2008, according to Bloomberg data. The Fed’s purchases drove the spread to 0.70 percentage point, the lowest since 1992, on May 22. 

The so-called option-adjusted spread to interest-rate swaps was negative 0.02 percentage points at 2:21 p.m. New York time, near the lowest since March 2007 and a level suggesting an investor borrowing funds at the London interbank offered rate to buy the Fannie Mae mortgage securities would lose money, according to Bloomberg data. That spread reached as high as 1.06 percentage points in October. 

Bloomberg current-coupon indexes represent the yields for hypothetical mortgage bonds trading at roughly face value. The levels are typically based on calculations derived from yields on the two groups trading just above and below par because of the size of their coupons, into which lenders typically package new loans.


Sincerely,
Carlos Samaniego

909-512-6418

Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist