Phil Grossfield's Blog

Mama Always Said… I am becoming more and more like my Mom and Dad (pictured). How do I know? Because I quote them more and more. For example, I said to my son yesterday, “if you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” The second after it came out of my mouth I thought about my Dad. Then yesterday I paraphrased one of my Mom’s classics. I was having an email conversation with a processor about how she expects people to work diligently, intelligently and thoughtfully.

One of the challenging things about our mortgage industry is that it requires us to rely on so many other people during the process…LOs, processors, appraisers, lender coordinators, AEs, title, and the list goes on…. So I told the processor that the reason she is frustrated is that she is diligent, intelligent and thoughtful and therefore she expects everyone else to be the same. But that’s not the way it works. You have to do the best you can with what and whom you have to work with. As my Mama always said, “if you expect others to treat you as well as you treat them you will be consistently disappointed, but that doesn’t mean you should ever stop treating people with kindness and thoughtfulness.” And so, we must work diligently and thoughtfully, and we hope and trust others to do the same, both in our professional and in our personal lives.

My Market Watch: Bonds Down, Now Up – Price Improvement Issued!

The 30-year bond was down early and is now up. Presently its trading about +9bps on the day. Interbank issued a Reprice Improvement since it published rates after the uptick in the purchasing of bonds.

Traders are watching closely as the markets react to finance news from Japan. Right now traders are looking for a good spot to buy and sell and that’s why the trading is up and down like a roller coaster. The bond is trading exactly between two floors as traders feel it out…

I had a few people yesterday ask me about the Glass Elevator Analogy. Click the link for past discussions on this and feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to discuss. For today I want to explain that stock and bond traders typically go to the glass elevator, or more commonly known as moving averages, in the absence of other economic data or geopolitical news. That is, a trader’s job is to buy low and sell high so they are looking for any and all information to help them decide when and what to do. If there is geopolitical news that could affect the markets, traders are watching. If there are economic reports that could affect the markets, traders are reading. Hell, even the weather can affect trading since big storms affect manufacturing, shipping and receiving. But when these factors are absent, then they go to the charts to look for trends in the buying and selling of securities. I hope that makes sense.