There are few days that look less important than today in today in terms of big-picture changes to bond market landscape. Even if Treasuries were to break either line in the chart below, they'd still very likely be grinding sideways in a 1-2 month context. Two caveats bear mentioning however. First, there's the simple one about financial markets being inherently unpredictable. Anything can happen despite the likelihood that it shouldn't. The second is a bit more optimistic however, and it concerns the downwardly sloped line in the chart. Days without scheduled data and events often resign themselves to following technical levels and trends.
If this trend is indeed trending (as opposed to just simply "returning to 2.46"), we could see that continue today. Above all else, we wouldn't read too much into today's activity when markets are either waiting on economic data to inform changes in Fed policy or, simply, changes in Fed policy. That said, the Fed hasn't changed horses in mid stream since upping the ante with June's Announcement, even if they have been out doing rhetorical damage control. That's to be expected. The fact that markets had no meaningful reaction to Bernanke (perhaps because he brought very little by way of meaningful, actionable new information to the discussion) says it all. So since there's no change in Fed policy, only data is left. Today has not data, so only technicals, tradeflows, and randomness are left. A good day of randomness might challenge this recent upper bound in MBS (coincides roughly with the 2.46 resistance in Treasuries).
Week Of Mon, Jul 14 2013 - Fri, Jul 18 2013 |
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Time |
Event |
Period |
Unit |
Forecast |
Prior |
Mon, Jul 15 |
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08:30 |
Retail sales mm |
Jun |
% |
0.8 |
0.6 |
08:30 |
Retail sales ex-autos mm |
Jun |
% |
0.4 |
0.3 |
08:30 |
NY Fed manufacturing |
Jul |
-- |
5.00 |
7.84 |
10:00 |
Business inventories mm |
May |
% |
0.0 |
0.3 |
Tue, Jul 16 |
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08:30 |
Core CPI mm, sa |
Jun |
% |
0.2 |
0.2 |
08:30 |
CPI mm, sa |
Jun |
% |
0.3 |
0.1 |
08:30 |
Core CPI yy, nsa |
Jun |
% |
1.6 |
1.7 |
09:15 |
Capacity utilization mm |
Jun |
% |
77.7 |
77.6 |
09:15 |
Industrial output mm |
Jun |
% |
0.3 |
0.0 |
10:00 |
NAHB housing market indx |
Jul |
-- |
52 |
52 |
Wed, Jul 17 |
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07:00 |
MBA Applications |
w/e |
-- |
-- |
533.3 |
07:00 |
MBA 30-yr mortgage rate |
w/e |
% |
-- |
4.68 |
08:30 |
Housing starts number mm |
Jun |
ml |
0.960 |
0.914 |
08:30 |
Building permits: number |
Jun |
ml |
1.000 |
0.985 |
10:00 |
Bernanke Testimony (House) |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
Thu, Jul 18 |
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08:30 |
Initial Jobless Claims |
w/e |
k |
343 |
360 |
10:00 |
Philly Fed Business Index |
Jul |
-- |
8.0 |
12.5 |
10:00 |
Bernanke Testimony (Senate) |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
13:00 |
10yr TIPS Auction |
-- |
bl |
15.0 |
-- |
* 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" |