Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
Wipeout! $6 TRILLION ERASED IN 60 MINUTES
Gold wiped out nearly $3 trillion
Silver erased nearly $790 billion
S&P 500 lost nearly $780 billion
Nasdaq wiped out $750 billion
Crypto market erased $100 billion
Insane crash at US market open.
Gold suffered too.
Along with Bitcoin.
A good Federal Reserve don’t. Print money, that is.
The Federal Reserve prints a lot of money (M2). Unfortunately, it largely benefits elites (the top 1%). The bottom 50% get some benefits, but the gains in net worth largely benefits the elite class.
This sounds like a legal Somali daycare scheme. Perhaps The Fed should be renamed “The Federal Quality Learing Center.”
Yes, Somalis have daycare centers in Columbus Ohio. Thanks Governor Dewine for doing absolutely nothing to reign in their fraud. /sarc
President Trump ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to operate like The Federal Reserve. Buying assets to manipulate interest rates. In this case, F&F have been ordered to buy $200 billion of agency MBS.
Thursday’s Truth Social post triggered an immediate snap tighter in mortgages, led by the belly and lower coupons. By pulling MBS spreads tighter and crowding out real-money buyers, Fannie and Freddie’s purchases would push incremental demand into Treasuries as the next-best duration substitute, putting a modest bid under the belly of the curve.
However, execution and the ultimate size of purchases is still unclear, as my colleague Alyce Andres noted. If the government-sponsored enterprises GSEs stagger purchases, and signal an ultimate increase above the announces $200 billion, further tightening should occur. They can fund a lot of the buys from existing liquidity portfolios, though there’s a path where they could issue short-term debt to preserve operating buffers and could nudge repo wider at the margin.
The bigger transmission channel is hedging, as highlighted by colleagues Ira Jersey and Will Hoffman. Unlike the Fed, the GSEs actively hedge MBS holdings, shedding duration by paying fixed rates in swaps and using swaptions to manage the negative convexity and vega risks embedded in mortgages. That matters for swap spreads and for volatility, especially in the belly.
That’s why GSE MBS purchases don’t have to be huge to change the feel in rate markets. The post-Global Financial Crisis regime dulled the classic convexity feedback loop because the Fed held such a large amount of agency MBS and didn’t hedge it, while the GSEs shrank their portfolios. Trump’s directive risks bringing more of that regime back.
A recent note out of Goldman Sachs frames it cleanly: A $200 billion build could lift the active convexity-hedger footprint by about 25%. The street then starts front-running the mechanical flows — paying in selloffs, receiving in rallies — which makes breakouts more likely even if day-to-day ranges look calm, Goldman added.
Positioning makes the setup more precarious. JPMorgan already saw mortgage valuations as a “bit snug” before the announcement, while BofA flagged that rates market had recently added fresh belly shorts sitting against a backdrop of benchmark funds still overweight MBS versus IG.
That mix can keep the initial tightening sticky, but it also raises the odds of sharp reversals if the market decides the purchasing flows are slower, smaller, or more heavily hedged than hoped.
Fannie and Freddie’s retained portfolio are soaring along with the duration gap.
The effect on mortgage rates has so far has been negligible. The 30-year conforming mortgage just fell below 6% at 5.99%.
It looks like President Trump wants ANOTHER Federal Reserve. He has ordered the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to purchase $200 BILLION in mortgage bonds in an attempt to lower mortgage rates. Puzzling since real GDP growth is soaring.
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2025 is 5.4 percent on January 8, up from 2.7 percent on January 5. After recent releases from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Census Bureau, and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcast of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth increased from 2.4 percent to 3.0 percent, while the nowcast of the contribution of net exports to fourth-quarter real GDP growth increased from -0.30 percentage points to 1.97 percentage points.
The 5.4% real GDP forecast is largely due to exports rising at 6.1% and imports falling -9.4%.
Looks like Trump’s tariffs are working.
Politicians love to scream about housing being simply unaffordable. Like mayor-elected Mandami in New York City. But the reality is that housing prices vary by city and there are more affordable cities than New York City to choose from. Federal policies should not be focused on letting people staying a particular city.
When we look at housing prices compared to average hourly earnings, we see housing prices rising with average hourly earnings … as expected.
If we look at year-over-year changes, we see the Covid bump in housing prices corresponding with the surge in Federal spending. But things have simmered down since the bump in 2020-2023.
My suggestion is for the Federal government to stop interfering in the housing market.
Hallelujah, I love this economy so! Of course, former First Lady Jill Biden is on the national tour trashing the economy saying it was “perfect” under Joe Biden.
Mortgage applications increased 4.8 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending December 5, 2025. Last week’s results included an adjustment for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 4.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 49 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 32 percent compared with the previous week and was 19 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
The Refinance Index increased 14 percent from the previous week and was 88 percent higher than the same week one year ago.
Compared to the prior week’s data, which included an adjustment for the Thanksgiving holiday, mortgage application activity increased last week, driven by an uptick in refinance applications,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “Conventional refinance applications were up almost 8 percent and government refinances were up 24 percent as the FHA rate dipped to its lowest level since September 2024. Conventional purchase applications were down for the week, but there was a 5 percent increase in FHA purchase applications as prospective homebuyers continue to seek lower downpayment loans. Overall purchase applications continued to run ahead of 2024’s pace as broader housing inventory and affordability conditions improve gradually.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($806,500 or less) increased to 6.33 percent from 6.32 percent, with points increasing to 0.60 from 0.58 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.
The good news / bad news for immigration enforcement is that home prices are declining as immigration enforcement keeps rolling. Good news for new homebuyers. Bad news for recent homeowners.
US home prices in the 20 largest cities rose 0.13% MoM in September (very slightly better than the 0.1% rise expected) and up for the second month in a row (after falling for five straight months before). This MoM rise left the average priers up just 1.36% YoY – the lowest since July 2023.
Declining mortgage rates suggest a rebound in aggregate prices could be looming…
Regional performance reveals a tale of two markets.
Chicago continues to lead with a 5.5% annual gain, followed by New York at 5.2% and Boston at 4.1%. These Northeastern and Midwestern metros have sustained momentum even as broader market conditions soften.
At the opposite extreme, Tampa posted a 4.1% annual decline – the sharpest drop among tracked metros and its 11th consecutive month of negative annual returns. Phoenix (-2.0%), Dallas (-1.3%), and Miami (-1.3%) likewise remained in negative territory, highlighting particular weakness in Sun Belt markets that experienced the most dramatic pandemic-era price surges.
Home Prices are now falling (YoY) in a majority (11/20) of America’s largest cities…
“The geographic rotation is striking,” said Nicholas Godec, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Meanwhile, traditionally stable metros in the Northeast and Midwest continue to post solid gains, suggesting a reversion to prepandemic patterns where job markets and urban fundamentals drive appreciation rather than migration trends and remote-work dynamics.”
“Markets that were pandemic darlings—particularly in Florida, Arizona, and Texas—are now experiencing outright price declines.
And don’t forget the surge in home prices associated with increased M2 money printing around Covid.
Redfin’s Housing Turnover Report, Q1–Q3 2025
Just 2.8 homes out of every 1,000 changed owners in the first nine months of 2025—the lowest turnover rate in at least three decades. This marks a 38% plunge from the 2021 frenzy, when 44 per 1,000 homes sold, and is 44% below the pre-pandemic 2019 pace of 40 per 1,000.
Why the freeze? – Rate lock-in: Over 70% of homeowners are sitting on sub-5% mortgages and are reluctant to trade them for today’s rates exceeding 6%.
Sticker shock: Record prices combined with high borrowing costs have left many potential buyers on the sidelines. The result is a housing market that remains stagnant.
*Home prices are relatively high as are mortgage rates.
Someone will undoubtedly write me to look at Singapore. Yes, I know. Been there, done that. Or London.
In the US, the lowest turnover rates are in Democrat strongholds New York and California.
A new week starts! And the all-important 10-year Treasury yields checks in at 4.112%, down from 4.397% one year ago.
Let’s see if Senate Democrats agree to open the Federal government.
Of course, CPI data release has been delayed thanks to the US Federal government shutdown (aka, the Schumer Shutdown). But never fear, the Federal government is continuing to spending like the proverbial drunken sailors in port. The Federal debt just breached the $38 trillion mark.
And the Federal budget deficit just breached the $7 trillion mark. Why? Too much Federal spending! The Federal government COULD raises taxes, but that would strangle the economy. But politicians in DC are terrified of not being re-elected, so they are terrified of cutting spending.
What about The Federal Reserve? M2 Money printed by The Fed now exceeds $22 trillion and The Fed’s balance sheet is now around $6.6 trillion. Can The Fed print our way out of the debt crisis? Think of the Weimar Republic with its hyperinflation due to excessive money printing.
The only way out is to drastically cut Federal spending. Or we could rename the US Dollar as the Reichsmark.
Any wonder why gold and silver prices are through the roof?
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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