Treasury Market Preview by Trade the News - In focus today are the releases of CPI for Jan. at 8:30, Leading Indicators for Jan. at 10:00 a.m. and the Jan. FOMC minutes at 2:00 p.m. In Fed speak, Kohn will speak on financial stability at 1:00 p.m. and Yellen speaks on the economic outlook at 3:25 p.m. In pre-market releases, MBA Mortgage applications fell 5.2% in the latest week. - Pimco's Gross raised his holdings of cash-equivalent securities in the $100B Total Return Fund to the highest level in two years to 43% from 26% at the end of last year. - In new supply, the Treasury will sell $18B of 2Y notes at 1:00 p.m. today. Tomorrow the Treasury will sell $13B of 5y notes. - In European economic news, the BOE released the minutes of its Feb. meeting today. The minutes showed that the MPC voted 7-2 to leave rates unchanged. Most MPC members said that more time was needed to assess the impact of past rate hikes and that there is a danger of too much policy tightening. The two members that voted for a hike, Besley and Sentance, put particular risks on the upside risks to inflation in the medium term because of the rise in near-term inflation expectations and the evidence of firms willingness to increase prices. Also in the U.K., the CBI monthly trends survey in retail sales showed total orders in Feb. rose to +4% from -9% in Jan. In France, CPI in Jan fell as expected by 0.3%. YoY French CPI rose 1.2% in the month, below expectations of 1.4%. In Switzerland, the President of the Swiss National Bank, Roth, said in an interview that interest rates are too low to contain inflation, adding that the Swiss franc is not in line with fundamentals. He warned that the Swiss economy may weaken during the second half of 2007. - In Asia, the BOJ raised rates by 25 basis points to 0.5%. The vote was 8-1. In its accompanying statement, the BOJ wrote that the Bank judged that the economy is likely to continue its moderate expansion. With respect to private consumption, the BOJ said that the weakness observed in the last summer seems temporary and judged it to be on a moderate increasing trend. On the price front, the BOJ wrote it is possible that the rate of change will be around zero in the short run, but from a longer-term perspective, consumer prices are likely to increase as a trend. - At 8:15 a.m. the 30Y future is up 2 ticks at 111 22/32, the 10Y future is up 2 ticks at 107 23/32 and the 2Y future is up 1 tick at 102.