Remember: April is National Procrastination Month! I could tell that my cat Myrtle was displeased the other morning. She’s very secretive about her finances, but my guess is that she’s “long” residential lender stocks and procrastinated selling them. Nearly every lender’s stock price is near all-time lows, making the sellers of these companies during the last few years look like timing geniuses. Earning notes on UWM and Rocket are below, but loanDepot shares have lost about 43.8% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of -16.3%. Finance of America, which had a management shakeup in mid-March and moving President Bill Dallas to an advisory role, reported a net loss for the quarter of $64 million, but improving from a $1.33 billion loss in the previous quarter. (FOA acquired Parkside last year.) Guild Mortgage saw only $32 million Adjusted Net Income, and its stock is trading near an all-time low. Retail, wholes
Besides a reminder that it is Teacher Appreciation Week, how about some loan officer humor to lead off Monday? “We’re closing on our house next week. Sorry we didn’t use you.” “Oh, that’s okay. You should really go buy a new car this week to celebrate.” LOs have a lot going on, including dusting off their adjustable rate mortgage playbooks: ARMs are making a comeback. Rate talk dominates. Unfortunately, the pricing isn’t quite there yet to their complete liking. And despite the uptick we’ve seen in ARM locks (around 8 percent industry-wide), the yield curve is extremely flat, so there is limited incentive to move into a 15-year loan or an ARM at this point. And regarding the yield curve, the two-day Federal Reserve meeting will conclude with a rate announcement this week on May 4. The market has fully priced in a 50 basis points hike for May and at least another five to six 25-point hikes are expected before the end of year