Correspondent Blog

The rate that the Federal Reserve pays on bank deposits, called the Interest on Excess Reserve Rate (IOER), is currently at ten basis points and will be the subject of an interesting discussion at the upcoming Fed Open Market Committee Meeting this week. At the end of last week, the Fed Funds effective rate was…

This week’s FOMC meeting won’t involve any change in monetary policy, what with rates already at 0%-0.25% and unlimited QE, but it may involve some formalizing of desired tweaks to a few of the programs stood up over the past couple weeks. Expansion of the Municipal Liquidity Facility beyond the states and approximately 24 cities…

The focus of trading this week has once again been on the trend in case counts and drug trial results for COVID-19. While the net of that has been a range-bound market, both in equities and fixed income, the data that did arrive continues to paint a grim picture. Jobless claims were down from last…

The fourth stimulus bill was agreed to by the Senate yesterday and the House is expected to vote on the bill Thursday followed by a quick signing by the President. The bill provides another $320 billion for the wildly popular Paycheck Protection Program,  $75 billion for emergency hospital funding that will provide monies for additional…

If we are going to “reopen America,” it helps to have a quantitative approach to make sure we are making the right decision. Since we are dealing with people’s lives and livelihood, this will be the most critical decision that most of us will ever have to make in their entire professional careers. Everyone wants…

Community bankers are busy serving their customers and protecting their balance sheets as we respond to the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic havoc.  Just as prudent bankers were strategically planning for the next recession before any signs of this downturn, forward-thinking community bankers will very soon be contemplating their strategy for doing business after…

Oil prices collapsed over the weekend from $18.27 a barrel to $12.07, the largest percentage slide ever, and the lowest price since 1998. The catalyst is continued slack demand and full storage facilities. Literally, there’s no place to put it. That has markets in a risk-off tone as the week begins. The market’s reaction  to…

Beginning in May 2012 we started tracking  portfolio trends of our bond accounting customers here at the Correspondent Division of CenterState Bank.  At present, we account for over 131 client portfolios with a combined book value of $10.09 billion, or $77 million on average per portfolio.  Twelve months earlier the average portfolio size was $65…

Yesterday, the SBA PPP loan program reached its initial limit with $349 billion in loans approved. Meanwhile, the political wrangling over the next tranche of funding goes on. Both parties want to add $250 billion to the program but they have been sparring over whether to add loan restrictions as well as funding for other…

We mentioned last week that with the forbearance program for mortgage debtors in the recently passed CARES Act, mortgage prepayments this year could see a period of quiet then followed by faster speeds when the forbearance programs expire. That expected pattern leads to two ways to approach mortgage investments this year. As mentioned, the CARES…

March prepayments had a little bit for everyone but mostly it was faster prepay speeds that printed before the economy ran off the rails owing to the coronavirus shutdown. The March report saw aggregate conventional Fannie Mae 30-year speeds rise 42%, double the consensus call for a 20% increase. Ginnie Mae II 30-year aggregate speeds…

So far this week trading has been dictated by the outlook of coronavirus cases and as we’ve mentioned in the past, with the outlook in New York improving at the margins, New York-based traders are often reacting with risk-on enthusiasm. We’re not, however, as sanguine about the outlook as other regions seem more than ready…