As readers may be aware, we're rather fond of being close to utterly dismissive of 2yr Treasury Note Auctions as significant market moving events for the sections of the MBS Coupon Stack that most directly apply to lender's rate sheets.  This has been true since the original "2013 verbiage" hit the streets in the August 2011 FOMC Announcement.  Ah, those were the days...  They grow up so fast, don't they?  Now we have "late 2014 verbiage" and the short end of the yield curve is just as glued into place as ever. 

In other words, 2yr auctions are more a matter of housekeeping whereas the longer maturities are more informative and of more consequence, especially to production MBS.  While 10yr Notes generally take the cake in terms of market-moving potential, 5yr Treasuries are no slouches--a perennial runner-up to 10's both with respect to market-moving potential as well as total market volume on most occasions. 

This leaves today's 5yr Note Auction at 1pm as the best candidate for market movement given that the morning data lacks the same sort of punch (although 10-11am Fed Buying in the long end has had mild, but noticeable impacts on several occasions).  But what the AM data lacks in ability to move the MBS needle, it somewhat makes up for by being germane to our industry--that is, it's either housing or mortgage related, depending on whether or not you're more keen to track weekly trends in Mortgage Applications which will be reported at 7am or if you'd prefer to see how Existing Home Sales come in at 10am after last month's 5% gain.  That pace is expected to have cooled to +1.9% bringing sales totals up from 4.61 mln to 4.65 mln. 

MBS Live Econ Calendar:

Week Of Tue, Feb 21 2012 - Fri, Feb 24 2012

Time

Event

Period

Unit

Forecast

Prior

Actual

Tue, Feb 21

08:30

National Activity Index

Jan

--

--

0.17

--

13:00

2-Yr Note Auction

--

bl

35.0

--

--

Wed, Feb 22

07:00

Mortgage market index

w/e

--

--

801.8

--

07:00

Mortgage market: change

w/e

%

--

-1.0%

--

07:00

MBA Purchase Index

w/e

--

--

166.6

--

07:00

Mortgage refinance index

w/e

--

--

4538.0

--

07:00

Refinancing: change

w/e

%

--

0.8%

--

07:00

MBA Purchase: change

w/e

%

--

-8.4%

--

07:00

MBA 30-yr mortgage rate

w/e

%

--

4.08%

--

10:00

Existing home sales

Jan

ml

4.65

4.61

--

10:00

Exist. home sales % chg

Jan

%

1.9%

5.0%

--

13:00

5-Yr Note Auction

--

bl

35.0

--

--

Thu, Feb 23

08:30

Initial Jobless Claims

w/e

k

354

348

--

08:30

Continued jobless claims

w/e

ml

3.46

3.426

--

10:00

Monthly Home Price mm

Dec

%

--

1.0%

--

10:00

Monthly Home Price yy

Dec

%

--

-1.8%

--

11:00

KC Fed manufacturing

Feb

--

--

13%

--

13:00

7-Yr Note Auction

--

bl

29.0

--

--

Fri, Feb 24

09:55

U.Mich sentiment

Feb

--

73.0

72.5

--

09:55

U Mich conditions

Feb

--

80.3

79.6

--

09:55

U.Mich expectation

Feb

--

68.5

68.0

--

10:00

New home sales-units mm

Jan

ml

.315

.307

--

10:00

New home sales chg mm

Jan

%

2.6%

--

--