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Month: November 2025

Capital Markets Recap: November 7, 2025

Posted on by Robbie Chrisman

While we had a relatively quiet week this week, largely due to the U.S. government government shutdown, I’m getting the sense from my conversations with people in the industry around the nation a sense of cautious optimism mixed with growing uncertainty. Why? Well, markets are grappling with weaker labor data, a prolonged government shutdown, and signs of cooling in the broader economy. Despite lackluster official data, delayed by the now 38-day shutdown, private reports such as those from…

Nov. 7: LO jobs; Non-QM, lock service, valuation M&A, borrower satisfaction, ARM hedging tools; Robinhood enters mortgage

Posted on by Rob Chrisman

How was the Louvre in Paris robbed? The password for the cameras was… ready? Louvre. (I’m sure that the Smithsonian, MOMA, Vatican IT, and lender IT staffs are busy changing theirs. (I have my passwords in a notebook… no one can read my scrawl.) Lenders and vendors on the conference circuit are hoping that the Federal Aviation Administration has better security, and its website says, “The FAA manages the world’s safest and most complex aviation system. On an average day, we serve more than…

Nov. 6: Leadership, LO jobs; AI processing, borrower experience & targeting tools; the labor market is being pummeled

Posted on by Rob Chrisman

Frequent conference goers or traveling salespeople are obviously concerned about the Trump Administration cutting 10 percent of flights for a variety of reasons. 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration agents are working without pay. For anyone looking for a job through the Job Board , here’s a pro tip for a question in your next interview: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Answer: “Celebrating the 5 th anniversary in your lunchroom of you…

The Next Fed Chair: What’s at Stake for the Mortgage Industry

Posted on by Robbie Chrisman

As Jerome Powell’s term as Federal Reserve Chair nears its conclusion in May of next year, attention is shifting to who will lead the central bank into its next phase, and what that leadership could mean for the mortgage industry. The finalists reportedly include current Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder. Each brings distinct strengths,…

Market Update – The Perfect Analogy

Posted on by Andrew Stringer

It hit me this morning… The current interest rate market is essentially EVERY season of the Dallas Cowboys. Think about it. Each year, we beaten down Cowboys fans get all excited about what the season might bring. Trades go off, positive signals emerge, and hope is offered that this will be the year everything turns around! And then, right when the season is on the line… we faceplant. If you happened to catch last night’s Cowboys game, then you know exactly what I (we) am feeling. In…

Beyond OCR: Why Intelligent Document Processing Is the New Engine of Mortgage Efficiency

Posted on by Joe Furlong

In today’s mortgage industry, the term “intelligent document processing” (IDP) often gets oversimplified. Many assume it’s simply about teaching machines to “read documents.” But true IDP, particularly at enterprise scale, is far more sophisticated. It represents a foundational shift in how lenders, servicers, and investors manage document-heavy workflows. At its core, IDP addresses one of the mortgage industry’s biggest bottlenecks: the inefficiency of handling, classifying, and extracting…

FICO’s Direct Licensing Shift: Breaking a Monopoly or Reshaping One?

Posted on by Taylor Stork

For decades, FICO has been the dominant force in credit scoring, central to the U.S. mortgage ecosystem since the introduction of its score in 1986. It has long drawn both scrutiny and reliance from the industry, regarded as a gatekeeper to credit access for millions of consumers. But a major structural shift is now underway: FICO has announced a direct licensing model that will bypass the traditional credit bureaus and instead work directly with credit reporting agencies (CRAs). While many…

Making Sense of the Markets: Why the Bond Curve (and Human Judgment) Still Matters

Posted on by Adam Quinones

Earlier this year, around the time tariffs were originally announced on “Liberation Day,” bonds were defying logic and leaving even seasoned traders scratching their heads. Today, things make a little more sense, but only just. Yields have fallen, MBS price discovery is less of a problem, and a clearer trading range has developed, yet investors are still wrestling to interpret a Federal Reserve that seems both cautious and conflicted. At the heart of this story lies the term structure of…