Morning Report all about the Fed

Vital Statistics:

	Last	Change	Percent
S&P Futures	1778.2	9.7	0.55%
Eurostoxx Index	2973.3	51.4	1.76%
Oil (WTI)	97.04	0.4	0.46%
LIBOR	0.243	-0.001	-0.41%
US Dollar Index (DXY)	80.05	-0.162	-0.20%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield	2.85%	-0.01%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA	104.6	0.0
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA	103.4	0.1
RPX Composite Real Estate Index	200.7	-0.2
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage	4.49

Markets are up this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up small. We had a few minor economic reports this morning which were generally mixed.

This week is all about the FOMC meeting starting this Tuesday. It feels like we are at a 50 / 50 bet on tapering at this meeting. We will also get the Fed's economic forecasts. The Fed has been consistently high in its forecast for economic growth, but it will be interesting to see the direction the forecasts point. Once we get the FOMC data, bond traders might as well go home for the rest of the year, with Christmas and New Years eve both middle-of-the-week events, the end of December promises to be slow.

We will also get our first housing starts number since the government shutdown. It should include September, October, and November data. We will also get existing home sales later on. 

Bloomberg has a good story on what went wrong with HAMP. If Bank of America wasn't forced to buy Countrywide, then the purchase goes down as one of the worst business decisions ever, up there with New Coke and Time Warner's aol purchase.