9/15/09

Although the market was basically unchanged overnight, this morning we have had a good dose of economic news which has moved rates higher. Retail Sales had their biggest monthly advance in over 3 years. This is obviously attributed to car sales but also outside of that sector. (Auto sales were up 10.6% in August.) We also had the US Producer Price Index come out twice as much as was expected. It didn’t help that gasoline prices saw their biggest jump in more than 10 years. The Labor Department said PPI jumped 1.7% last month and fell 4.3% from August 2008. Although we still have the Empire State Manufacturing data, the PPI and Retail Sales numbers knocked rates up.