The Day Ahead: Another Chance to Fight Off the Growing Case for Apathy

By: Matthew Graham

The title of yesterday's "week ahead" asked whether or not markets to decide between confirming apathy and discovering organic motivation.  Granted we're only one day in to the week, but thus far, we have one vote clearly in favor of confirming apathy.  There was plenty of data and headlines, but none of it eliciting a clearly defined (and clearly attributable) reaction in markets.  In other words, "stuff" was happening and markets were moving, but no good case can be made for connecting one to the other.

In addition, the day's movement wasn't especially inspiring or directional in the first place.  MBS and Treasuries both traded sideways to slightly weaker and did so in lower-than-average volumes.  Either markets had a case of the Mondays or we're waiting for Thursday's EU Summit.

Although today's session offers the Consumer Price Index at 8:30am along with Treasury International Capital at 9:00am, the best shot we have to see the aforementioned "organic motivation" arrives at 9:15am with the Industrial Production Report.  NAHB's Housing Market Index rounds out the morning of data at 10am, but if things aren't already responding to the earlier data, NAHB's HMI can do little to change that.

MBS Live Econ Calendar:

Week Of Mon, Oct 15 2012 - Fri, Oct 19 2012

Time

Event

Period

Unit

Forecast

Prior

Mon, Oct 15

08:30

NY Fed manufacturing

Oct

--

-5.00

-10.41

08:30

Retail sales mm

Sep

%

0.7

0.9

10:00

Business inventories mm

Aug

%

0.5

0.8

Tue, Oct 16

08:30

CPI mm, sa

Sep

%

0.4

0.6

08:30

Core CPI mm, sa

Sep

%

0.2

0.1

09:00

TIC Net L-T flows,exswaps

Aug

bl

--

67.0

09:15

Capacity utilization mm

Sep

%

78.3

78.2

09:15

Industrial output mm

Sep

%

0.2

-1.2

10:00

NAHB housing market indx

Oct

--

41

40

Wed, Oct 17

07:00

MBA Purchase Index

w/e

--

--

198.9

07:00

Mortgage refinance index

w/e

--

--

5772.6

08:30

Housing starts number mm

Sep

ml

0.768

0.750

08:30

House starts mm: change

Sep

%

--

2.3

08:30

Building permits: number

Sep

ml

0.810

0.801

08:30

Build permits: change mm

Sep

%

--

-1.2

Thu, Oct 18

08:30

Initial Jobless Claims

w/e

k

362

339

10:00

Leading index chg mm

Sep

%

0.2

-0.1

10:00

Philly Fed Index

--

--

1.0

-1.9

Fri, Oct 19

10:00

Existing home sales

Sep

ml

4.75

4.82

10:00

Exist. home sales % chg

Sep

%

-2.0

+7.8

* mm: monthly | yy: annual | qq: quarterly | "w/e" in "period" column indicates a weekly report

* Q1: First Quarter | Adv: Advance Release | Pre: Preliminary Release | Fin: Final Release

* (n)SA: (non) Seasonally Adjusted

* PMI: "Purchasing Managers Index"