If the calendar of upcoming events and y'day's volume are any indication, it's possible that Wednesday was the climactic final scene before the intermission.  Volume ramped up steadily on the first three days of the week, hitting it's best levels since mid-March.  10yr Treasuries hit their best levels since October, stocks their lowest since January, and MBS hit all-time highs yet again (and took down a big chunk of originator production in the process).  

All "that" seemed to come to a head with today's FOMC minutes and obligatory Greek headline(s).  On the surface, tomorrow looks much calmer by comparison.  Apart from the standard weekly Jobless Claims, forecast at 365k vs last week's 367k (not really on our radar as a big market mover at the moment), there's really only the Philly Fed index at 10am left to attempt to push markets in one direction or another from an economic data standpoint.

Combine that with the fact that Friday is empty and the following week contains the lesser of the two varieties of Treasury auction cycles, extremely light data, plus an early close on Friday (Memorial Day on Monday) and we're starting to think that we may have just lived through our best prospect for excitement between now and Month-End (tons of data at the end of that holiday shortened week, culminating with NFP on Friday June 1st), barring a headline shocker out of Europe.

Caveats are as follows.  "Headline shockers" are par for the course out of Europe recently, and markets seem to suggest it makes less sense to discount them in a strategic view and more sense to sit on the edge of one's seat waiting for them and make teensy weensy little trades in the most tactical manner possible (recall that "tactical vs strategic" are opposites on the spectrum of trading time horizons).

In other words, most everyone is very scared and those who aren't scared are still trading as cautiously as those who are.  So to pretend like we have a clue what's going to happen next would be folly.  We don't really have an opinion on what a correction from here would look like, but we do generally ascribe to this notion of "small, fast, and reactionary."  A humongous face-melter in either direction would require a genuine headline shocker.   

MBS Live Econ Calendar:

Week Of Mon, May 14 2012 - Fri, May 18 2012

Time

Event

Period

Unit

Forecast

Prior

Actual

Tue, May 15

08:30

Consumer Prices mm

Apr

%

+0.1

+0.3

0.0

08:30

Retail sales mm

Apr

%

+0.2

+0.8

+0.1

08:30

Empire State Index

May

--

9.00

6.56

17.09

09:00

Foreign buying, T-bonds (TIC)

Mar

bl

--

15.35

20.47

09:00

Overall net capital flows (TIC)

Mar

bl

--

10.1

-49.9

10:00

Business inventories mm

Mar

%

+0.4

+0.6

+0.3

10:00

NAHB housing market indx

May

--

26

25

29

Wed, May 16

07:00

Mortgage refinance index

w/e

--

--

3734.8

4219.1

07:00

Mortgage market index

w/e

--

--

710.4

775.6

08:30

Housing starts number mm

Apr

ml

.683

.654

.717

08:30

Building permits: number

Apr

ml

.726

.764

.715

09:15

Capacity utilization mm

Apr

%

79.0

78.6

79.2

09:15

Industrial output mm

Apr

%

+0.6

0.0

+1.1

14:00

FOMC Minutes From Apr 24/25th Meeting 

--

--

--

--

--

Thu, May 17

08:30

Initial Jobless Claims

w/e

k

365

367

--

08:30

Continued jobless claims

w/e

ml

3.24

3.229

--

10:00

Leading index chg mm

Apr

%

+0.1

+0.3

--

10:00

Philly Fed Index

May

--

10.0

8.5

--