I could see a scenario over the next six, 12 months where I think mortgage rates could easily be

100 basis points lower than they are today. Why? Well, because I think the Fed's going to cut

a little more aggressively than the market's pricing in, but also think that mortgage spreads

will compress from here as well. Hello and welcome to the Barron Streetwise podcast. I'm Jack

Howe and the voice you just heard is Andrew Cisorowski. He's the strategic income

portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and in a moment he'll explain

what's next for mortgage rates and why for investors mortgage-backed securities look attractive.

We'll also look at the wild ride recently in shares of Elf Beauty, and we'll hear

from that company's CEO and atop Wall Street Cosmetics Analyst.

Listening in is our audio producer, Alexis. Hi, Alexis. Hey, Jack. I'm going to do my best here. I'm going to put on a brave face. I do have a mild burn on the tip of my tongue. I got too aggressive recently with some corn on the cob. What happens is you pull it out of boiling water and a corn on the cob will hold its heat

for a long time, but, you know, corn's delicious. So there's always a, it's always a difficult standoff where you got to wait long enough to not burn yourself, but you don't want to wait too long because you can't wait to get into that corn and I didn't wait long enough. But I'm going to Push through. Please don't call me a hero. Now, I want to talk about elf beauty. You are familiar with this company's products, correct? Yes, elf eyes, lips, and face. Right. It's a little E, little L, little F. Right, very Gen Z. But then a capital B on beauty. It's the name, if I'm being honest, It's like being as much of a pain in the neck with somebody having to write that name as possible. But we'll give them a pass for that. If you look at the chart of this stock, this thing has been public since 2016, and this is a stock chart that would scare off a meme coin trader. This thing has been wildly volatile.

But depending on when you bought it, you might also have made great money. Over the past five

years, the stock has returned 492%. That compares with 106% for the S&P 500. Growth has mostly been

rapturous over the years. There have been a couple of exceptions.

The stock debuted in 2016. The IPO price was $17 a share. It closed the first day of trading

over 26, and then over the next two years, the stock price got cut in half. There was a rare

sales decline for the company. The company's CEO at the time,

Tarang Amin, responded by closing the company's own stores and focusing on its sales through

national retail partners as well as through its website. He also improved marketing. I want to focus

on the period that started with the stock's high price over $200 a share last

summer and ran through a steep decline into the 60s, followed by a rebound to about $120 recently.

Just this month, there was a 9% decline when the company reported quarterly financial results,

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