Month/Quarter-end trading dynamics made for a volatile day in the context of the recent range.  It wasn't so much that the moves were big, just that they seemingly came out of left field and ran their course quite quickly. 

There were two distinct examples of such movement.  The first came at the 9:30am stock market open with yields and stock prices dropping aggressively until 10am.  From there, as if to emphasize the point that economic data just couldn't matter any less, an exceptionally weak Consumer Confidence report marked the end of the rally for bond markets and the end of the sell-off for stocks. 

The mid-morning to early afternoon hours were completely uneventful with both MBS and treasuries trading narrow ranges.  2:45pm brought the next bout of volatility as a last-minute quarter-end shuffle saw not only position-squaring from traders, but also several last minute corporate bond hedges selling treasuries on this month's books.