All Eyes on CPI (Part 2)

Last week ended up being a sideways dud in terms of the bond market's willingness to do anything new after the previous week's big rally.  That said, the mere act of holding inside a relatively narrow range helps to confirm the previous week's rally was more than some weird byproduct of oversold momentum and corrective short-covering (even though those things helped make the rally bigger).  This week's focus remains squarely on Tuesday's CPI release as the week's only super heavy hitter on the econ data front.  Retail sales data will play a strong supporting role the following day.  Monday's off to a weaker start without any obvious justification.

There's a fairly big drop expected at the headline CPI level (0.1 vs 0.4) previously, while the core is expected unchanged at 0.3%.  The spillover of the big shift in fuel prices is a bit of a wild card, as is the ongoing disinflation of rental prices.