Recap
Friday was a largely uneventful day for rate sheets, with bonds drifting lower through the afternoon, but not enough to merit lenders repricing worse. The question heading into the weekend was how much would the situation with Iran escalate.
Rate outlook for today...
Rate sheets this morning likely to be a bit worse, as bonds slip further this morning. Reprice risk on the day is low, bonds aren't likely to sell off hard today but I wouldn't look for any improvement either. The outlook for rates not great now, with renewed military strikes against Iran and Iran saying they are closing the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump said this morning that, "We're (the US) going to guard it. We're going to get paid for guarding it - a lot of money." He went on to point out, "We're going to be reimbursed, because the other nations are very wealthy. They're on our side, and we can't be expected to do that for nothing."
So today rates will likely move higher early but won't get worse during the day. But tomorrow at 8:30am ET, CPI inflation data comes out, and that is likely to cause some moves. With the end of the ceasefire in Iran and oil prices being pushed higher once again though, we are not likely to get much help from the data no matter how it comes out. Lower inflation would only represent what happened a month ago during the ceasefire, and wouldn't be cause for hope of continued improvement now that the fighting has recommenced and the traffic of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is threatened once again. If we saw surprisingly hot numbers that didn't reflect a drop in inflation, that would be even worse as markets would take it as a sign that the Fed will need to hike rates sooner.
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