MBS MID-DAY: Treasuries, MBS Moderately Stronger After Mixed Data

Retail Sales and Jobless Claims both came in weaker than expected this morning and bond markets improved.  That set of cause and effect could have taken many forms, and today's is nothing if not the most boring. 

Internal components (beyond the headlines) held back more meaningful movement.  This was particularly true in the case of Retail Sales where the last report was revised higher by MORE than the current report missed the forecast.  So that's actually a net-negative implication for bond markets, and it does more than required to explain why we're not rallying more sharply today.

Jobless Claims was simply close enough to the consensus as to not much matter.  Markets will be more interested in next week's version which will cover the same time period used to crunch early July NFP numbers.  None of the morning's other reports moved the needle.

Fannie 3.5s have been between 1 and 4 ticks better since the data.  They'd opened about 4 ticks weaker.  10yr yields avoided a break above 2.66 again overnight, but came close.  They're near 2-day lows now at 2.624 (about 1bp above the lows).