Market Analysis

US Treasury Bonds improved today with the yield on the 10 year Treasury moving down to 3.33%. Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac initially appeared to enjoy the momentum but scaled back towards the end of the day to end just barely positive. Equity markets had a very good day with the Dow moving up 136 points to 10,406.

Below is a recap of the economic calendar for this week:

Monday, November 16, 2009

October Retail Sales - Up 1.4% vs projections of a .9% increase and a 1.5% decrease last month. Excluding autos, up .2% vs projections of a .4% increase and a .5% increase last month.

Empire State Mfg Survey (General Business Condition Index for the New York Region) - 23.51 for November vs projections of 29.0 and last month reading of 34.57.

September Business Inventories - Down .4% vs projections of a .8% decline and an August decline of 1.5%.

Ben Bernanke Speech to the Economic Club of New York - Fed Chair Bernanke said that he did not believe the US economy was going to deteriorate further (as some analysts are predicted) but that the recovery would be very slow and that job grown in 2010 will be very meager.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

October Producer Price Index (PPI) - Expected up .5% vs September down .6%. Core rate (excluding food and energy) expected up .1% vs September down .1%.

October Industrial Production - Expected up .4% vs .7% increase in September

Capacity utilization expected up to 70.7% vs September 70.5%.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

October Consumer Price Index (CPI) – Expected up .2% vs September up .2%. Core rate expected up .1% vs September up .2%.

October Housing Starts – Expected up 1.7% vs September up .5% with permits up .9% vs 1.2% decline in September.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Initial jobless claims for the week ended 11/17 – expected up 2,000 vs last week down 12,000

Conference Board Leading Indicators for October – expected up .4% vs 1% increase in September.

Philadelphia Fed Survey (General Business Conditions Index for the Philadelphia Region) – expected 12.0 vs September 11.5.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Economic calendar is vacant.