February 15, 2023 – Economic News

• February 15, 2023
• realestate
• Business & Markets, Fed, Interest Rates, Politics & Economy, Rates, Real Estate, Real Estate Finance, Recession, World News, Your Real Estate Life

MBS OVERVIEW

4:00 EST – Our benchmark FNMA MBS 6.00 March Coupon is up just +3 BPS with 60 minutes left to trade.

Retail Sales: We got a nice upside surprise to the January Retail Sales data. The headline reading rose by 3.0% vs. est. of 1.8%. Ex Autos it was up 2.3% vs. est. of 0.8%. The Control Group (which feeds into GDP) was up 1.7% vs. est. of 0.3%

Rosie the Riveter: February Empire Manufacturing PMI showed yet another contraction, -5.8 but it was better (less worse) than expectations and much better than January’s reading of -32.9. January Industrial Production was flat at 0.0% vs. est. of 0.5%. Capacity Utilization was also a miss at 78.3% vs. est. of 79.0%.

Taking it to the House: Weekly Mortgage Applications dropped by -7.7%. Refinances tanked by -12.5% and Purchases were down by -5.5%. The NAHB index rose from 35 to 42 but still well below 50.

Treasury Dump: We had a 20 year bond auction today at 1:00. $15B went off at a high yield of 3.977% with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.54

On Deck for Tomorrow: Initial Weekly Jobless Claims, Housing Starts and Building Permits, Philly Fed Manufacturing, PPI, Core PPI