Bond market movement over the past few days certainly isn't ALL about the VW news, but I've reluctantly come to accept just how much of a role it played.  It's not that bond traders are sitting around waiting to find out what happens with VW per se.  Rather, VW caused or added to the generalized anxiety in equities markets, which in turn helped reinforce some bond market optimism.

The optimism had its own reasons in addition to equities weakness.  Today saw far fewer corporate bond deals, which had been a big issues so far this week.  Add to that the fact that Treasury auctions were done this afternoon and much of the previously troublesome "supply" considerations were out of the way for bonds. 

The curveball came later in the afternoon.  After earlier news that BMW may have engaged in some of the same emissions drama as VW, stocks were having another very bad day.  Then the paper that published the story retracted it!  Stocks came roaring back and took a dent out of the bond market gains in the process.

The next curveball is still in the air, and I'm sure we'll discuss it tomorrow depending on the market reaction.  Yellen's speech came out right at 5pm, and was so insanely different from last Thursday's communications that it really just doesn't make sense.  The gist was that everything is fine and she expects a hike in 2015.  Definitely not the same Yellen as last week.  Markets were closed by then though, with bonds just barely holding in positive territory.


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
100-28 : +0-03
FNMA 3.5
103-31 : +0-01
FNMA 4.0
106-15 : +0-00
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6880 : -0.0150
10 YR
2.1280 : -0.0234
30 YR
2.9170 : -0.0280
Pricing as of 9/24/15 5:23PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
2:24PM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Negative Reprice Risk Increasing
9:34AM  :  As Supply Dwindles and Data Fails to Impress, Bonds Rally, Stocks Sink

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Jason Anker  :  "I got .125 to .25 from some govt inv's today"
Matthew Graham  :  "Only looked at Wells early this morning, and essentially no change."
Ryan Bier  :  "minimal here too."
Nathan Miller  :  "very minimal here"
Timothy Baron  :  "How much pricing improvement are we seeing vs yesterday? Im out of the office today."
Matthew Graham  :  "Strong indirects. Otherwise, vanilla. B+"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- PRIMARY DEALERS TAKE 28.52 PCT OF U.S. 7-YEAR NOTES SALE, DIRECT 8.89 PCT AND INDIRECT 62.59 PCT"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. 7-YEAR NOTES BID-TO-COVER RATIO 2.51, NON-COMP BIDS $16.11 MLN"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. SELLS $29 BLN 7-YEAR NOTES AT HIGH YIELD 1.813 PCT, AWARDS 5.06 PCT OF BIDS AT HIGH"
Matthew Graham  :  "7yr Auctions have tended to come in lower than expected in terms of yield recently (3 out of the last 4). Current expectation (based on "when-issued" trading is 1.813). Average bid-to-cover has been just under 2.5 and Indirect bidding has been 53%. (For those who need it, jargon primer here: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage_rates/bl...)"
Victor Burek  :  "got a auction preview?"