Stocks start the week weak
March 10, 2025
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–Friday’s payroll data was about as expected with NFP 151k and the Unemployment rate up 1/10th to 4.1%. However, U-6 jumped 0.5 to 8.0%. Then year yield rose 2.9 bps to 4.315%.
–JOLTS tomorrow expected 7665k from 7600k last. The high in 2022 which preceded peak CPI of 9.1 by a few months was 12182k, low last year 7372k. FOMC is a week from Wednesday, so thankfully we’re in the blackout period. However, President Trump does, on occasion, make an unexpected comment that throws the market for a loop.
–US auctions 3s, 10s and 30s starting tomorrow. As of now, equity market weakness seems to be supporting fixed income. As of this writing on Monday morning, ESH is -66 at 5710.
–Truflation index down to 1.4%. Perhaps there’s an ‘overshoot/undershoot’ aspect to the data, but the high in June of 2022 was 11.6%. This as we await CPI on Wednesday, expected 0.3, with yoy 2.9 (from 3.0) and Core 3.2 (from 3.3).
–Large trade Friday appears to be exit seller of ~50k SFRU5 9625c at 24 covered 9525.5 to 26, or synthetically down to 47 in the straddle. SFRU5 9625^ settled 48.0. Friday is the last day for MARCH sofr options. Next week September will be trading in the second quarterly slot. ATM March midcurve straddles are all 14.5 to 15.
