Bonds are getting smoked
Near 9:43 a.m. ET, the Dow was down 8 points, the S&P 500 was down less than a point, and the Nasdaq was up 5 points.
The big moves on Tuesday, however, are happening in bonds and in the US dollar.
Bonds are selling off and yields are climbing.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to a year-to-date high of 2.303%, a climb of about 5 basis points, or 0.05%.
The long 30-year bond yield was also up 5 basis points at around 3.07%.
The US dollar rallied after we got strong data on housing starts last month. The dollar index rose by more than 1% to as high as 95.94. On Monday, the dollar rebounded from a four-month low.
In April, housing starts surged to the highest level since November 2007. Data out this morning showed that starts rose 20.2% to an annualized pace of 1.135 million, versus expectations for a 9.6% rise to an annualized rate of 1.01 million.
Building permits rose 10.1% to an annualized pace of 1.143 million, versus forecasts for a 2.1% to an annualized pace of 1.06 million.
We got more retail earnings this morning. Wal-Mart missed on the top and bottom lines in the first quarter, taking a knock on earnings from foreign currency headwinds and the wage rise it announced in February. Its stock fell by more than 3% in early trading.
But TJX Companies - parent of TJ Maxx - beat on earnings and revenues, and rose by more than 3%.
Urban Outfitters reported a big miss on Monday evening, leading Oppenheimer analysts to downgrade the stock. It fell by more than 14% on Tuesday.