Weekly Market Update

Stimulus fever has hit the bond market as talks between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were deemed positive enough to send 10-year yields above 0.80%, a four-month high, climbing as high as 0.834%. Currently the 10-year yield sits at 0.814%. While the odds of a deal passing prior to the election…

Examining Bond Portfolio Trends: Third Quarter 2020 Beginning in May 2012 we started tracking  portfolio trends of our bond accounting customers here at the Correspondent Division of CenterState Bank.  At present, we account for over 130 client portfolios with a combined book value of $11.5 billion, or $88 million on average per portfolio.  Twelve months…

Election Scenarios, Stimulus and Yields With the week devoid of much first-tier economic releases, Treasuries are likely to drift within the well-worn range that we’ve seen for what seems like forever but stretches back to March. And to be fair, even if we did have some first-tier data to trade around, the market is more…

While the bond market was closed Monday for Columbus Day, equities posted strong gains like kids without supervision.  But with the bond adults back in the house yesterday it was fixed income investors who liked yields that had been backing up for two weeks and it generated a nice bit of buying in Treasuries, particularly…

September Retail Sales & CPI Head This Week’s Releases We are one week closer to the election and it seems the markets are getting comfortable pricing in a Biden win and that has helped give a lift in Treasury yields over the past week. The thinking is if the win is decisive enough to be…

Allow us, during a slow week of economic releases, to do a little self-promotion. We will be hosting a Capital Markets Forum on October 15 in a livestream format. If you’re curious where the economy and interest rates might be headed, and what to do about it, spend a couple hours in the comfort of…

Elections and COVID One presidential debate down and with the president beset with a case of COVID (but set to be released today) that could be it for debates this cycle. Thus, we travel into November with a contested election still a serious consideration. How that impacts yields is anyone’s guess but we think the…

Economic NewsInitial Jobless ClaimsThe Dollar and TIPs Breakeven RatesMarket Rates   Economic News The September Employment Report is out  and it missed the headline expectation mainly due to government job cuts. For the month,  661 thousand jobs were created versus the 875 thousand median estimate. This miss came largely from government losing 216 thousand jobs….

The end of the quarter is upon us so those month-end and quarter-end rebalancing trades may drive some volatility today but it’s been a sharply rangebound fixed income market for almost all of September. October will have the added heat of the election campaign in its home stretch and while that’s likely to up the…

Election Calculus Enters The Equation This is a week with a ton of first-tier data but will it matter? With the first of three presidential debates set to air on Tuesday evening, election scenarios will move front and center as market drivers ending of course on November 3rd. Or perhaps, not ending on that date…

Not that economic results have been driving markets much since the pandemic hit it’s even less likely as we get closer to the elections and investors start to enter that event into the trading calculus. It will still be the direction of the pandemic that will be calling most of the shots but as the…

Even though we had an FOMC meeting last week we are being inundated with Fed speak again with almost every FOMC member opining on the economy and US policy this week. The headliner, however, was Chair Powell paired with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin testifying before the House Financial Services Panel yesterday. They will repeat the performance…