Clint 's Blog

Invest in Your BusinessThink Like a CEO, Not an Employee A critical mind shift must take place to become a successful Real Estate Agent. First and foremost, you must think of yourself as the company owner and understand what it takes to fill the position of Chief Executive Officer. Whether you ru...

As a "shade tree economist", I notice things at times that I find interesting if nothing else. Today I came into the office for a little 'clean up work' on Sunday afternoon so I could work smoothly starting tomorrow. I live 2 miles, almost exactly, from my office. In that two miles, I pass by 4 g...

MBS Volatility was in full effect today. Trading as low as 28bp down on the day and ending around 9bp below the open to close at $100.31. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke today on the topic of financial stability at the Fed's retreat and the financial markets liked what they heard. Primarily when ...

Although we did see a 53bp swing today and broke through the 50dma with bonds. Rates are seeing a short term improvement for now so take advantage of it.   Observations- Are house prices to low? Are they or were they to high? Neither or both depending how you want to look at it. Pricing is to rel...

Mortgage bonds finished the day slightly ahead, 3bp of where we started. Headline PPI rose 1.2% in July, that was double the expected figure, and leaving the year over year headline PPI at a blistering 9.8% and the biggest year over year gain in 27 years, largerly due to ridiculously high oil pri...

While Monday watched mortgage backed securities shed 44bp (the monthly bond roll over dropped it another 31bp at the end of the day for the actual number to come in at -77bp but that's another topic for another day.) Tuesday's half hearted rally was trampled by Wednesday fears of inflation. Early...

The Fed keep rates the same this week, which was expected and appreciated as far as inflationary fears. As for home loan rates, they would've liked to see a Fed increase because as we all should know, Fed Funds rate cuts actually cause an increase in home loan rates as it's an inflation spurring ...

After recent weeks of "progressing" in the wrong direction, bonds and home loan rates finally managed to make some progress in the right direction last week. Mortgage rates improved about .125% from where we started the week. The biggest deal being President Bush signing into law HR 3221, "The Ho...

More of the same for the mortgage backed securities market. After being pushed down to their worst levels of the year, which of course means rates at their highest of the year, bonds mounted a rally last week. Talk of a potential fed hike eased, apparently, some of the inflation fears and that he...

Last week as each day started, mortgage backed securities traded lower, and lower, and lower. Friday of last week was more of the same really. If you dared to say "well, nowhere to go but up from here." Going into trading on Friday morning, you were sorely mistaken. Bond traders found a way and p...