FNMA 4.5% bond lost 12 bps...and is trading at $100.75. Look out for more sell-off tomorrow as the pricing has drastically improved over the last several sessions and traders will be looking to preserve profit.

Feds spent about $26.65 billion on Mortgage Backed Securities last month...making the total spent year to date at about $818 billion.
Remember that these investments are backed by mortgages and promise a "return" to the investor. Fed meeting minutes suggested that they start tapering off purchases of MBS over the next several weeks...and some are in favor of extending the program that will otherwise terminate at the end of December. Rates will possibly come up slightly on this news.

Dow picked up 64 points today...as traders are usually a little non-committal with a holiday weekend looming. Remember that 3 days worth of "news" can create a "frenzy" in the markets that investors do not want to be on the wrong side of. Watch for sell-off tomorrow in the bond market as well with the holiday factor.

Feds will auction off a mere $70 billion in t-notes next week which would normally be a phenomenal number...if it weren't for the incredible amounts the markets have grown accustomed to recently.

We are expecting some more job losses reported tomorrow (about 230,000) so watch to see if the report is better or worse than that number...

Reports from today came in just where expected so there wasn't to much turmoil in the markets.

(Initial unemployment claims came in at $570,000, ISM services index came in at 48.4 vs. 48 expected.)

What is it? ISM services index is a survey of about 370 professionals who are NOT in manufacturing. Questions about their business are answered giving us an idea of how "things are going" for them...and in turn allowing us to glimpse the "economy" from their perspective and make predictions or recognize trends earlier than otherwise possible.

Have a great eve!

Chad