Volatility in the market has continued to shift money away from stocks to safer assets such as bonds and then reverse the trend taking money out of safer assets and buying stocks. We have seen some upward pressure from inflation as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in 1.4% higher than a year ago and was the highest since October 2014. As inflation pressure continues to inch slowly higher it influences mortgage rates to follow suit. While a stronger dollar and extremely low oil prices have countered some of the inflation, the upward surprise was not great news for those seeking to keep interest rates lower. The key indicator going forward may end up being the CPI as that will require the Fed to take a long look at the indication of possibly slowing down future rate increases even if the world economy struggles to right the ship.

As the wave of investors continues to move toward getting as granular as they possibly can with pricing, are they limiting the lenders overall options? As we see the new wave of investors going to customer specific pricing or the push to see who can have 100 rate sheet versions and regions, are we getting to where you send 90% of your volume to one investor to get the better incentive pricing? Granted there are a lot of other factors involved other than how much volume you send their way such as service, relationship, pass-through, etc.

What is with the MBS market? One day we see 20/32 gains and the next we are right back down with two days of 12/32 losses just to remind us of where we are. This is a very volatile time for bonds, both from seasonal and market conditions and we are seeing that on a daily basis. How long does this continue and how big of a factor does Europe and our own economy come into play?