I’d like to pretend this week’s going to be lively and entertaining for market observers, but I’m afraid that’d be wishful thinking.

To present wishful thinking as the most likely course of events is to tell a lie. Basically. And I don’t lie.

So, bad news everybody: This week’s probably going to be dull and tedious. There’s exactly nothing on the docket save a Bank of England meeting, and in some respects that’s worse than nothing. (The MPC watchers among you, if there are any, should get a chuckle out of that.)

“We came into this week assuming that it would, to a large extent, function as a placeholder ahead of next week’s inflation data,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen said late Monday, adding that the earliest price action “did nothing to dissuade us of this notion.” (Indeed.)

But persevere we shall, and under the circumstances, I thought this might be an opportune time to highlight a few quick excerpts from the strategist community. These are presented in no particular order. Topics vary.

In contemplating the next directional break in the Treasury market from a binary perspective, one can simply ask which comes first, 10-year yields at 4.25% or 4.65%? We’re in the 4.25% camp following last week’s series of events. In addition to the payrolls report, ISMs disappointed, the JOLTS quits rate declined, the Treasury Department clearly signaled auction sizes will be stable for the foreseeable future, buybacks will begin soon, QT tapering was announced, geopolitical tensions have increased and the technical landscape has finally turned in favor of lower yields. Our most obvious concern is the data itself — CPI has been surprising on the upside, and we’d be remiss to ignore the potential for another upside surprise. April’s core-CPI printing at +0.4% certainly isn’t our base case scenario but it’s on the radar and would challenge our constructive duration call. — Ian Lyngen and Vail Hartman, BMO

The price reaction on the back of [next week’s CPI] release may be more important than the data itself given how influential price action has been on investor sentiment amid an uncertain macro set up. With many consumer facing companies discussing cost-conscious households on earnings calls and with several important bellwethers selling off post-reporting, it’s probably not a surprise that we fielded a number of questions on the state of the consumer last week. Overall, we would describe the consumption backdrop as bifurcated between high-end stability and lower-end weakness, in line with the takeaways from our analysts that we discussed last week. Companies are increasingly focused on offering “value” as the lower income cohort pulls back on spending and trades down. Transcript mentions of “value” among Consumer Discretionary companies are historically elevated. — Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley

The analysts’ projection that S&P 500 quarterly EPS will rise 17% by Q4 2024 relative to Q1 2024 assume[s] very high topline growth or a very strong expansion in profit margins. We are skeptical of both. By looking at the sensitivity of S&P 500 revenue growth to nominal GDP growth, 13% nominal GDP growth would mechanically be needed in the US to be consistent with 17% S&P 500 revenue growth. And the S&P 500 EPS to Sales Per Share ratio is already high by historical standards leaving little room for further expansion. In fact, a simply visual inspection suggests that both revenue and earnings growth for the S&P 500 are converging towards a mid-single-digit (i.e. close to 5%) growth pace rather than the exuberant high double-digit consensus growth estimate for this year. — Marko Kolanovic, Et al. JPMorgan

As for the US economy, the cash-rich (people and companies) are having a ball while the indebted (small-caps and lower-income families) are suffering. You can see it in the politics and it’s why Jay Powell wishes he could ease policy but knows he can’t. — Kit Juckes, SocGen