Good Luck Making Sense of Retail Sales Reaction

Good Luck Making Sense of Retail Sales Reaction

Based on a few research papers that have attempted to quantify the impact of various economic reports as well as the general consensus among economic calendar purveyors, Retail Sales is allegedly a top tier market mover. In fact, a somewhat recent attempt by CME to rank econ data has in 5th place ahead of CPI, PPI, and PCE. But in our experience, it is a report that has decent potential to cause market movement only when there's an open question as to the health of the economy. It is also easy for the market to look past when there are temporary factors in play. Fuel price volatility qualifies as one of those disqualifiers (even the calendar timing of Amazon Prime Day is often cited as a reason to tune out month-to-month discrepancies), and the market is trading accordingly. 

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MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.5
99.43
-0.18 
10YR TREASURY
4.689
+0.046 
8/14/2026 12:44PM EST
MBS are down another few ticks and 10yr yields are pushing news highs for the day. The average lender is now seeing almost 6 ticks (.19) of weakness from morning rate sheet print times. That makes negative reprices a stronger possibility compared to at the time of the morning's first alert.    READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed
6.71%
+0.02% 
15YR Fixed
6.29%
+0.03% 
8/14/2026
Mortgage rates dropped noticeably on Thursday on a combination of lower oil prices and a lower inflation reading via the Producer Price Index (PPI). Rates are driven by bonds and bonds are highly responsive to the outlook for inflation and the economy. The Iran war caused inflation implications to spike and the periodic relief in fuel prices has coincided with bond market improvement (and lower rates). The official inflation data is just another form of the same benefit. F...   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Friday, Aug 14
8:30AM Jul Retail Sales Control Group MoM Jul -0.4% 0.3% 0.5%
8:30AM Jul Retail Sales (%) Jul -0.6% 0.1% 0.2%
9:00AM Fed Venable Speech
10:00AM Aug Sentiment: 1y Inflation (%) Aug 4.3% 4.2%
10:00AM Aug U Mich conditions Aug 51.8 55 54.8
10:00AM Aug Sentiment: 5y Inflation (%) Aug 3.3% 3.3%
10:00AM Jun Business Inventories (% ) Jun 0% 0.1% 0.3%
10:00AM Aug Consumer Sentiment (ip) Aug 51.0 54.5 55.2
Monday, Aug 17
12:00AM Roll Date - UMBS 15YR, Ginnie Mae 15YR
8:30AM Aug NY Fed Manufacturing Aug 10.2 15.60
10:00AM Aug NAHB housing market indx Aug 33 34
12:00PM NOPA Crush Report (%)