UMBS opened UP 2 bps.  S&P futures up 14.5 points

Durable Goods Orders = 0.7% vs -0.8% f’cast   [2.6% Prev]

If there were any remaining doubts regarding the relevance of Durable Goods as a big ticket market mover, they are put to rest by the absence of a discernible reaction despite a very big beat. In other words, +0.7 vs -0.8 is significant, but the market movement has been nil. Granted, the negative revision to last month was even bigger, but markets always prefer the most recent data–especially when we’re actively waiting for the first sign of some sort of big, fundamental shift in inflation and growth.

New home sales fell 4.7% MOM to 634,000. This is down 7.7 on a YOY basis. The median sale price rose 3.9% YOY to $433,500. At the end of the quarter there were 480,000 homes for sale, which represents a 9.1 month supply.

There is a bifurcation between the big builders who can offer discounted mortgages and the rest of the industry which cannot. “For all the happy talk from the big builders (who are taking market share), the entire new build industry is selling new homes at a pace below the 5 yr average,” noted Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group and a CNBC contributor.

If there was one objective hurdle to clear in order to consider the present week completely uneventful in terms of big picture rate momentum, it would have been that the 10yr Treasury yield hold inside the 4.34 – 4.50 range.  Thanks to today’s friendly revision in consumer inflation expectations, the hurdle was cleared without a millimeter to spare.  With that, these business days plus the adjacent weekend days add up to 11 uneventful days for the bond market. Next week isn’t much better in terms of big ticket data, but Friday’s PCE price index is a notable exception.

UMBS ended the day up 7 bps at 100.18