J-Hole Knee-Jerk: A brief, but volatile market reaction to Fed Chair Yellen's speech at the Jackson Hole symposium.

That's been the day's primary story, at least on the surface.  Bigger media outlets will attribute the volatility to Yellen's speech and headlines out of Ukraine.  That's OK.  They don't know any better, but you can.

The truth is the same as it has been: domestic bond markets really aren't sure what the game plan is. Big conviction has been punished so volatility stays low as a result.  Markets are resigned to follow European undercurrents and intraday momentum when big trades happen.  Today's European undercurrents are about as obvious as usual (i.e. wet German blanket dragging US down, and remember, in bond market terms, Germany = EU):

2014-8-22 Germany vs US

On the topic of big trades motivating momentum, here's how pathetic the post-J-hole trading really was.  It wasn't the market's reaction to Yellen that inspired the biggest move of the day.  In fact,t he post-Yellen trade was mostly volatile, and very much in line with the preexisting trend.  The bigger move--both in terms of volume and volatility--was driven by ONE trade.  You read that right: just one big block trade (what's a block trade?) was all it took to get the entire herd running in the same direction as the trade.

2014-8-22 Pathetic

For what it's worth, during these slower summer months, it's not all that uncommon to see bigger block trades setting the tone for trading to a greater extent that fundamental economic data.  In the current case, it was good for a short term 'pop,' but no match for the European wet blanket.


MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
98-28 : +0-02
FNMA 3.5
102-18 : +0-01
FNMA 4.0
105-24 : +0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.4840 : +0.0160
10 YR
2.4020 : -0.0050
30 YR
3.1550 : -0.0380
Pricing as of 8/22/14 12:36PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
11:02AM  :  Best Case For a Bounce Back so Far
10:41AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Negative Reprices Quickly Becoming Possible or even 'Likely'
10:26AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Bond Markets Weaker After Yellen Speech, but Trying to Bounce Back
9:34AM  :  Bond Markets Continue Unwinding Overnight Ukraine-Based Rally

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- YELLEN: COULD REASONABLY EXPECT FURTHER INCREASES IN LABOR DEMAND TO PULL SIZABLE SHARE OF DISCOURAGED WORKERS BACK INTO WORK FORCE"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - YELLEN URGES CAUTION IN JUDGING THAT RECENT WAGE DATA POINTS TO WEAKER LABOR CONDITIONS THAN INDICATED BY UNEMPLOYMENT RATE"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- YELLEN: FED NEEDS TO MAKE "DIFFICULT JUDGMENTS" ABOUT CYCLICAL, STRUCTURAL INFLUENCES ON LABOR MARKET"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- YELLEN SAYS FED EMPHASIS SHIFTING TO DETERMINING WHAT LABOR CONDITIONS WOULD BRING ABOUT LESS ACCOMMODATION"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- YELLEN: TIGHTENING POLICY TOO SOON AS INFLATION MOVES TOWARD 2 PERCENT MIGHT PREVENT LABOR MARKET FROM FULLY RECOVERING"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- YELLEN: STILL UNCLEAR DEGREE OF REMAINING LABOR SLACK, HOW QUICKLY IT WILL DISAPPEAR"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - FED'S YELLEN SAYS "NO SIMPLE RECIPE" FOR APPROPRIATE POLICY IN CURRENT U.S. LABOR MARKET CONTEXT"
Matthew Graham  :  "No hard and fast rule, but somewhere near 103-16"
Joseph Moran  :  "question: in order to get to 4% on the 30 year fixed where does pricing need to be on the 3.5? Just curious as to what the threshold is."
Hugh W. Page  :  "I think we get Draghi tomorrow as well as the head of the BOJ. Could be an interesting Weekend perhaps."
Matthew Graham  :  "schedule: http://mndne.ws/1llcf8h"
Hugh W. Page  :  "So the question of the morning is will she stay true to form or throw us an off speed pitch? I'm looking for a fastball down the middle."
Victor Burek  :  "Blomberg reporting Russian convoy illegally entered Ukraine"