Weekly Market Update

To this point, Treasuries have managed to navigate a week that could have put them up against the rocks of higher yields on several occasions, but instead they’ve mostly avoided any major disasters. First, it was a trio of reopening auctions, especially the $38 billion in additional 10-year notes auctioned on Wednesday and $24 billion…

Investors and the Fed are expecting a pop in inflation shortly from another round of stimulus hitting the economy, as well as continuing improvement in the pandemic, and distressed values from March and April last year rolling out of the YoY calculation. Alas, February CPI arrives as something of a placeholder until the above have…

Stimulus 3.0 and February CPI Report The Senate made quick work of the third stimulus bill passing it on Saturday and now it returns to the House where it will likely be passed without changes and then head to the president’s desk for signing into law. The haggling over stimulus check income limits took some…

The February Employment Report beat expectations of 200,000 new jobs with 379,000 jobs created. Private payrolls were even better with 465,000 new jobs. In addition, the prior two months were adjusted higher with 38,000 more jobs than initially reported. We mentioned last month that January is a notoriously difficult month to project even in the…

Stimulus 3.0 and February Jobs Report With the House having passed it’s version of Stimulus 3.0 on Friday, Senate Democrats look set to take up their version this week. One issue that will have to be addressed between the two bills is the minimum wage provision. It is in the House bill but the Senate…

The February bludgeoning in the Treasury market continued yesterday with yearly highs set in the 10-year (1.61%) and the 30-year (2.39%). The 5-year joined the party yesterday leaping 26bps in one day to 0.86%, but that’s 30bps short of the yearly high of 1.16% set exactly one year ago today. Yields came off those mid-day…

Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivered an as expected performance yesterday in his virtual testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. Don’t expect any changes in rates or QE purchases anytime this year, and maybe next year too. Powell emphasized in the Q&A that the labor market is worse than official statistics imply. For example, when including…

Senate Returns to Work on Stimulus 3.0 After a one week hiatus, or vacations to Cancun, the Senate will take full aim at the Biden Administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion Stimulus 3.0 package.  With memories of the trimmed down Obama 2009 stimulus package still fresh in many Democrats’ minds, expect them to go it alone and…

With little in the way of material economic releases to disturb the market,  price action in Treasuries will be the story in itself.  All eyes have been on the 10-Year note as it jumped out of the gate on Tuesday following the long weekend and posted a weekly high of 1.33%, and nearly the highest…

Treasury yields have moved to near yearly highs with the usual suspects being inflation fears, improving virus/vaccine outlook, and the coming of Stimulus 3.0. One of the tenets in the improving virus/vaccine outlook is that it will drive a rebound in consumer spending and with two-thirds of the economy based on consumer consumption an improving…

  Yields on the Move Again 10-year Treasury yields moved over 1.25% in the early morning hours without any particular reason. After taking down supply last week in a fairly easy manner, some consolidating around the upper teen range was seen as likely but the move this morning has to be respected. Technically speaking, 1.27%…

Visions of inflation have been dancing around investors heads for months now given the amount of present and future monetary and fiscal policy stimulus, not to mention the improving news on the virus and vaccine front. January CPI numbers, however, continue to reflect benign price pressures. The overall rate increased  0.3% for the month versus…