The Day Ahead: Not Much Guidance For Bond Markets
Given that the massive stock rally and plethora of earnings reports did little to motivate bond market movements on Tuesday, we're not looking at today's full slate of corporate earnings as particularly interesting for MBS. Indeed when there are only 2 or so bps of upward movement to explain in 10yr yields, we'd give the nod to the stronger-than-expected Spanish debt auctions over domestic goings-on.
At least Tuesday offered the opportunity to even consider domestic vs foreign events. We'll get no such consideration today, at least not as far as economic data is concerned. Sure, there's the with-us-as-always MBA Mortgage Applications bright and early at 7am, but this is more of a curiosity--a minor cog in a bigger machine--than anything. That machine--mortgage and housing data in general--has been generally forgettable of late.
Some minor underlying support comes from scheduled Fed "Twist" buying in the 8-12 year range, but that falls in the afternoon time slot (1:15-2pm) as opposed to more common 10:15-11:00am morning slot. Point being: what to trade in the meantime? Those are quite a few hours to while away without some guidance from European events or a headline surprise.
In short, bond markets might be more sensitive than normal to aforementioned "unscheduled" events and/or headlines. And if those "maybe's" don't show up to the party, there could be more reason to move in a correlative manner with stock markets. But even if bond yields and stock prices are moving in similar directions at similar times, it doesn't feel like the former is ready to keep pace with the magnitude of the latter.
Bottom line: lots of sideways inertia this week, waiting on FOMC next week.
|
Week Of Mon, Apr 16 2012 - Fri, Apr 20 2012 |
||||||
|
Time |
Event |
Period |
Unit |
Forecast |
Prior |
Actual |
|
Mon, Apr 16 |
||||||
|
08:30 |
NY Fed manufacturing |
Apr |
-- |
18.0 |
20.2 |
6.56 |
|
08:30 |
Retail sales mm |
Mar |
% |
0.3 |
1.1 |
+0.8 |
|
08:30 |
Retail sales ex-autos mm |
Mar |
% |
0.6 |
0.9 |
+0.8 |
|
09:00 |
Foreign buying, T-bonds |
Feb |
bl |
-- |
82.96 |
15.35 |
|
09:00 |
Overall net capital flows |
Feb |
bl |
-- |
101.0 |
107.7 |
|
10:00 |
Business inventories mm |
Feb |
% |
+0.6 |
+0.7 |
+0.6 |
|
10:00 |
NAHB housing market indx |
Apr |
-- |
28 |
28 |
25 |
|
Tue, Apr 17 |
||||||
|
08:30 |
Housing starts number mm |
Mar |
ml |
.705 |
.698 |
.654 |
|
08:30 |
Building permits: number |
Mar |
ml |
.710 |
.715 |
.747 |
|
09:15 |
Capacity utilization mm |
Mar |
% |
78.6 |
78.4 |
78.6 |
|
09:15 |
Industrial output mm |
Mar |
% |
+0.3 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
|
Wed, Apr 18 |
||||||
|
07:00 |
Mortgage refinance index |
w/e |
-- |
-- |
3467.3 |
-- |
|
07:00 |
Mortgage market index |
w/e |
-- |
-- |
678.8 |
-- |
|
Thu, Apr 19 |
||||||
|
08:30 |
Initial Jobless Claims |
w/e |
k |
370 |
380 |
-- |
|
08:30 |
Continued jobless claims |
w/e |
ml |
3.29 |
3.251 |
-- |
|
10:00 |
Existing home sales |
Mar |
ml |
4.62 |
4.59 |
-- |
|
10:00 |
Exist. home sales % chg |
Mar |
% |
+0.5 |
-0.9 |
-- |
|
10:00 |
Leading index chg mm |
Mar |
% |
+0.2 |
+0.7 |
-- |
|
10:00 |
Philly Fed Index |
Apr |
-- |
12.0 |
12.5 |
-- |