Welcome to the day after the Thanksgiving Holiday--where US markets are open in name, but closed in spirit.  Technically, SIFMA recommends an "early close" of 2pm for Bond Markets (and 1pm for the NYSE), but the number of available trading hours in the day grossly overstates the volume and activity traditionally seen on these Fridays.  MBS prices may move in either direction, but little can or should be inferred from their movement today, when a sizable chunk of market participants won't be around to have their say.

Making the ghost town even ghostlier is the fact that Japan is out on holiday as well (full closure), and the most pressing issues in Europe are on hold until next week.  Chief among these issues is the yet-to-be-cemented terms of Greece's next tranche of bailout money.  There was some hope that a deal would be inked on Wednesday, but Euro Zone Finance Ministers weren't able to agree on the repayment terms for the bailout funds.  The European Commission's Ollie Rehn said yesterday that he expects Finance Ministers to sign off on the deal on Monday.  Markets, however, haven't gotten too excited about Rehn's statement given that Wednesday marked the second failure in two weeks and that Euro zone officials will be working over the weekend in hopes of getting things wrapped up by Monday.

MBS Live Econ Calendar:

Week Of Mon, Nov 19 2012 - Fri, Nov 23 2012

Time

Event

Period

Unit

Forecast

Prior

Mon, Nov 19

10:00

Existing home sales

Oct

ml

4.75

4.75

10:00

Exist. home sales % chg

Oct

%

0.0

-1.7

10:00

NAHB housing market indx

Nov

--

41

41

Tue, Nov 20

08:30

Housing starts number mm

Oct

ml

0.850

0.872

08:30

House starts mm: change

Oct

%

--

15.0

08:30

Building permits: number

Oct

ml

0.865

0.890

08:30

Build permits: change mm

Oct

%

--

11.1

Wed, Nov 21

07:00

Mortgage market index

w/e

--

--

864.9

07:00

Mortgage refinance index

w/e

--

--

4801.3

08:30

Initial Jobless Claims

w/e

k

--

--

09:55

U.Mich sentiment

Nov

--

84.5

84.9

* mm: monthly | yy: annual | qq: quarterly | "w/e" in "period" column indicates a weekly report

* Q1: First Quarter | Adv: Advance Release | Pre: Preliminary Release | Fin: Final Release

* (n)SA: (non) Seasonally Adjusted

* PMI: "Purchasing Managers Index"