Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] Like yesterday (or at least all of yesterday until the last 10 minutes of the session), there isn't much excitement in today's trading action. Conviction has been lacking with valuation concerns acting as a headwind for buyers and the ongoing resilience of the market acting as a headwind for sellers.

The result is a market spinning its wheels in front of the 2:00 p.m. ET release of the FOMC Minutes for the January 28-29 meeting. Those minutes are not expected to create any real market-moving energy, only because market participants heard Fed Chair Powell last week give his semi-annual monetary policy testimony. Moreover, various Fed officials since the January meeting have expressed their view that the Fed need not be in a hurry right now to adjust the policy rate.

The long and short of it is that the FOMC Minutes should have a "dated" feel to them, thereby neutralizing their market-moving capability.

Separately, U.S. Treasuries have spent the past couple hours in a slow retreat from their morning highs with the long end feeling some additional pressure after the U.S. Treasury's $16 bln 20-yr bond auction, which met soft demand. The sale drew a high yield of 4.830%, which tailed the when-issued yield by a basis point, while the bid-to-cover ratio (2.43x vs 2.60x average) and indirect takedown (63.0% vs 69.9% average) were below average.

The 2-yr note yield is down one basis point to 4.29% and the 10-yr note yield is up two basis points to 4.56%.