Good Thursday AM,

Today’s only real significant market mover is/was the ECB Announcement and press conference.  They weren’t expected to change policy, but markets were curious to get ECB Pres. Lagarde’s take on bond buying.  In short, the bank remains strongly committed to the original pace of asset purchases.  When Lagarde finished the press conference without saying anything discouraging for bonds (i.e. “no whammies”), the reaction was swift and obvious.

This is helping bond markets remain strongly committed to the recent, lower-yield trading range marked by lows of roughly 1.53%.  The more important accomplishment, however, has been the steady move lower after hitting the 1.75% ceiling.  A close second would be the pivot below the 1.62% technical level.  Lastly, we can also read some positivity into the move below 1.585 over the past 3 days, with confirmation bounces yesterday at 1.5837 and this morning at 1.579 (close enough to consider these to be “technical” bounces).

Here is a little data to back up what we all know is going on in the market:

Sales of luxury homes rose 41.6% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2021, crushing sales of affordable homes (7% increase) and mid-priced homes (5.9%), per a recent report from Redfin. Redfin defines “luxury” homes as selling for an average of $975,000, “expensive” homes as selling for an average of $429,000, “mid-priced”
as selling for an average of $272,000, “affordable” as selling for an average of $184,400, and “most affordable” as selling for an average of $99,000.

Please remain safe and healthy, make today great.