CC Rider! 30Y MBC Current Coupon (CC) spreads is widening.

And metals are along for the ride! Gold and silver are soaring!


Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
CC Rider! 30Y MBC Current Coupon (CC) spreads is widening.

And metals are along for the ride! Gold and silver are soaring!


I am glad all over … because the AI boom is delivering a record contribtion to US GDP.

And US home prices are contracting making housing more affordable.

I don’t care what you did when you lived in Fort Worth, but at least home prices are contracting.
The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE – fell once again in April to its lowest since April 2021 at +2.5% YoY.

And The Fed keeps on printing money!

Supercore inflation is down to -0.023 MoM.

The Fed is thinking that they can help.

Its like Joe Biden and his bonehead advisors are still gumming up the housing market. Pending home sales in April remains in the house latitudes.

NAHB home builder confidence remains below 50 at 34.

Is the music over for the housing market? High housing prices, high mortgage rates, restrictive zoning all hinder markets.

US 30y bond yields are heading toward their highest level since 2007.

The yield curve has finally normalized!

And significantly steeper in 2025.

Later and shallower rate cuts are being priced.

The not shocking news out of DC: The ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will “Massively” Increase Near-Term Deficits, Add $5 Trillion In Debt. The surprising news? New home FHA Mortgage Share has surged!

On the not surprising news front: FHA debt-to-income ratios have surged (the surge started under Biden).

New-home loan sizes have fallen to 2021 levels.



Well, U.S. and China reached an agreement to lower tariffs in a 90-day cool-off period. Despite China claiming they would NEVER agree to tariffs! The result? The NASDAQ 100 rose to its highest level since mid-February.

So much for the MSNBC/CNN doomsayers.
The delinquency rate on US commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) for offices SURGED to 10.3% in April, near the highest EVER.

Moreover, the multifamily delinquency rate spiked 113bps in April, to 6.57%, the highest since 2015.
The Fed can help, but won’t. We are still struggling to recover from Biden’s cockeyed management of the economy,
Mortgage applications increased 11.0 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 2, 2025.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 11.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 11 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week and was 13 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

The Refinance Index increased 11 percent from the previous week and was 51 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

The economic news last week included a negative reading for first-quarter GDP growth and further signs of contraction in the manufacturing sector, mixed with a solid employment report for April. The net impact on mortgage rates was mostly downward but just back to levels from early April. The 30-year fixed rate declined to 6.84 percent.
But there will be no rate cuts today from The Fed.


Doge is necessary to get close to closing the budget gap (tax receipts – spending). Biden left Trump and the US with an untenable fiscal situation (think Cloward/Piven). Extremely large debt load with debt maturing over the next couple of years. Thanks to former Treasury Secretary Janet “The Snake” Yellen government funding formula using ST government debt. And its time to pay the piper to pay for Biden’s overspending and Yellen’s Treasury mismanagement.
Most of the Treasury debt that Treasury Secretary Bessent must refinance is short-term.

And with interest rates higher under Trump/Bessent than Biden/Yellen, US Interest Payments on Public Debt is expected to keep rising.

And US trade balance fell to -140.5.

So, were Biden’s economic policies (and Yellen’s Treasury mismanagement) an intentional Cloward-Piven strategy?
Here are Columbia sociologists Cloward and Piven attending a bill signing by President Bill Clinton.

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