There are all sorts of ways to divide market moving information into different categories.  One of our favorites is also one of the most broad: scheduled vs unscheduled.  At first glance, it might seem a bit odd to classify something scheduled as "market moving information" before it has been released.  After all, we don't yet know what it's specific impact will be, or if it will even have one.  But the important part here is not so much about the market impact and more about the fact that IF the data in question proves to be a market mover, AT LEAST WE KNOW what time of day it is released. 

The same courtesy is rarely extended to markets by the more significant market movers that concern European woes.  The timely example would be Greece's current petulant defiance of it's three most important bond-holders: the ECB, EU (via European Commission), and the IMF--collectively known as the Troika.  Although we can hazard guesses as to the approximate timing of pertinent information based, for example, on the time of a certain deadline, we've seen time and time again that Greece either doesn't care about running over such deadlines or is otherwise incapable of reaching sufficient consensus to meet them.

This was the case on Monday where the pinnacle of progress on the Troika talks was Greece agreeing to 1 of the 7 conditions by yesterday'seadline.  The fact that bond markets traded relatively flat and in a relatively narrow range should tell you one of two things: either markets have given up caring about these sorts of surprises, or they're simply waiting for something bigger to happen before going out of their way to react to it.  Whatever the case may be, this is our best candidate to produce the unscheduled market movement discussed above. 

If it seems like "stuff that hasn't even happened yet and might not happen at all" is getting a somewhat inordinate amount of attention, that's because the other side of the equation--scheduled market movers--were in extremely short supply on Monday and are in similarly short supply again Today.  That said, today is marginally better, primarily due to a 10:00 AM Bernanke appearance in front of the Senate Budget Committee as well as a few pieces of economic data.  One of the reports is even important enough for us to mention, but only just!  December Consumer Credit is released at 3pm Eastern and is expected to have grown by 7.2 bln dollars after a 20.37 bln increase in the previous month. 

Beyond that, the only other item that makes the cut on our economic calendar is the 1pm Auction of 3yr Treasury Notes.  Although these used to be significant enough to warrant a close look, 2 and 3yr note auctions have been increasingly uneventful since the August FOMC announcement introduced the 2013 verbiage (now the "2014 verbiage"), which effectively pinned down the short end of the yield curve.  Today's auction could send ripples, but any wave-making is reserved primarily for Wednesday's 10yr auction and to a slightly lesser extent, Thursday's 30yr Bond.

Bond markets were quiet overnight, trading in narrow ranges and light volume.  10's are 1bp higher at 1.912 and MBS are starting the day a tick lower at 103-26.  Slightly bigger movement is seen in stocks where the S&P is off 5 pts from 4pm prices.