Tuesday Funny:
We're getting
into camping season in many areas.
An atheist was
walking through the woods. "What majestic trees! What powerful rivers!
What beautiful animals!" he said to himself.
As he was
walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.
He turned to
look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran as fast as he
could up the path.
He looked over
his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked over
his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer.
He tripped &
fell on the ground.
He rolled over
to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for
him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant
the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"
Time stopped.
The bear froze. The forest was silent.
As a bright
light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my
existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist, and even credit
creation to cosmic accident?" Do you expect me to help you out of this
predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The atheist
looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to
suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the
BEAR a Christian?"
"Very
well," said the voice.
The light went
out. The sounds of the forest resumed.
And the bear
dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:
"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through
Christ our Lord, Amen."
How do you like these two headlines
today, good news/bad news for lenders? "Fed set to shrink huge bond
portfolio, pushing up interest rates." And, "Trump Administration
says financial watchdog agency should be defanged." And here's a
story for the public to read about aggressive down payment programs
and then berate their current lender about not having a 0% down mortgage.
Don't forget the Wall Street Journal story about the rise
of "subprime" lending.
Training & events
Many CEOs, CMOs, and digital
marketing managers have been thinking about how their company appears online.
You should be also. Everyone is invited to attend a lively discussion about
user & self-generated content and how both can help your company with
search engine optimization (Google), recruiting, and your company website. This
webinar is Thursday 6/15 at 2PM ET and is hosted by Seroka
Brand Development & SocialSurvey.
Scott Harris and John Seroka will cover 4 key topics and provide you with a ton
of actionable ideas to implement at your company immediately. This fast-paced
webinar will be both entertaining and informative. Register today for Manage
Your Online Brand. Spots are limited.
All MLOs should block out Thursday,
June 15, at 2PM EDT on their calendar to join another quality webinar from
our friends at National Mortgage Professional Magazine. This complimentary
webinar presented by Ron Vaimberg, nmpU President and Head Coach and
sponsored by REMN Wholesale, will provide you with strategies and
tactics on"How to Get the Appointment with Any New Referral
Partner." With closed offices and real estate agents that rarely come
into the office, connecting with them is getting almost near impossible unless
you know the secrets to getting their attention. The secret is you must know
exactly what to say and do. Click here to
sign up for this FREE Webinar!
Time to get "Rolling with the Changes"
with the MMLA Annual Lending Conference at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort
in Mt. Pleasant, MI, July 30th - August 1st. There are
different options available to fit your schedule and your budget.
Don't miss the debut of the Colorado
Mortgage Summit September 29th at the Marriott Tech
Center Denver. The Denver market is one of the nation's hottest housing
regions, and the new Coorado Mortgage Summit promises to be one of the top
regional mortgage shows of the year.
Registration is now open for CalyxSoftware's
CalyxVision
18, the company's second national user conference. The event will be
held February 11-14, 2018 at the Hilton
San Francisco Union Square. CalyxVision offers the unique
opportunity for lenders and brokers to receive more than 16 hours of in-person,
hands-on Calyx® software training. In addition to training, CalyxVision
attendees will enjoy a comprehensive educational experience with more than 20
hours of sessions covering industry hot topics.
Capital Markets
One capital market chief
writes, "LOs and capital markets folks everywhere await the Fed decision
tomorrow, when it is presumed the Fed will announce a .25% rise to the Fed
Funds rate. With economists now placing odds at over 90%, does that make the
announcement a mere formality without consequence?
"Not quite, as a rise
in the Fed Funds rate will still have trickle-down (or trickle-up) effects on
your rate sheets. Last week we saw an increased lock volume due to lower
rates - many investors saw the Comey testimony lacking the substance to derail
the Trump administration's ability to pass future legislative agenda - but I
also hope you capitalized as best you could on those lower rates.
"Mortgage companies will have
two choices with rates in the wake of an announced Fed rate hike: raise rates
or cut margin. It's the classic mortgage company dilemma, and one more and more
of us are having to face with the proliferation of sites like Zillow where
customers can see several company's rates side by side, or Quicken, where
customers are lured by a low advertised rate and breezy process. Lenders can
choose to focus on one or two of product, price, and service - not all three
consistently.
"A rising rate environment
puts pressure on the sales staff to both process customers at higher rates than
what the customer saw upon initial application, and sell that same customer on
progressing quickly through the process before rates increase further. A
company like Quicken on agency products, or Chase on 20% down jumbo ARMs, is
always going to be able to sacrifice margin further than us to close the deal,
so we need to turn the focus to other positives.
"Maybe you are a local lender
who can provide a personal touch in discussing the area with the borrower, or
maybe your company also offers helpful products like the recently announced
Fannie Mae student loan cash out refinance. There is always an angle to be
communicated to the borrower that can help you close a loan."
Looking at rates, prices edged
down Monday, and thus rates moved higher, in a "curve-steepening"
trade. And this as MBS volume was well below normal at 75% of the 30-day moving
average according to Tradeweb. Are locks down, meaning fewer MBS to sell to
hedge? At the close, the 10-year note was lower .125 in price to yield 2.21%
while 5-year notes and MBS were worse a couple ticks (half of .125).
This morning we've already seen
the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for May, a secondary number, which was
unchanged and has seen no change since January. We've also seen May's wholesale
inflation number with the Producer Price Index: flat, but the "core"
rate, excluding food & energy, was +.3%. Coming up is a $12 billion 30-year
bond auction. We find rates a smidge higher versus Monday's close with the
10-year yielding 2.22% and agency MBS prices down a tick or two.
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