No economic reports today

It’s another day with no economic reports to move markets one way or the other.  Stocks and bonds are trading mildly for now, with investors looking to tomorrow’s FOMC Minutes for economic insight and direction.  Stocks are sitting at all time highs, but earnings are less than stellar. In addition, the recent week of employment reports had a few too many aspects of disappointment for the bulls to keep charging higher.   The minutes may give some clue as to the Fed’s perspective on quantitative easing tied to the unemployment rate target of 6.5%, given the recent drop to 7.6% for the wrong reasons.   Mortgage bonds have moved higher in the last few weeks and that is changing their character as the moving averages are starting to turn up.  This is a technical signal that supports sentiment shifting more favorably for bonds and may lead us towards the all time low rates we saw a the end of 2012.  We will maintain a cautious floating bias.