At 9am, domestic bond markets were just barely clawing their way into positive territory after an uneventful overnight trading session. That made for low yields of 2.206% in 10yr Treasuries--very much in line with the low end of the sideways trading range that we've been tracking ahead of next week's likely Fed rate hike.
After hitting those lows, yields rose ever-so-slightly and very steadily throughout the day. MBS prices lost JUST enough ground for several lenders to put out negative reprices. The fact that at least as many lenders are still on the day's original rate sheets speaks to the equivocal level of bond weakness. For many, if the range isn't being meaningfully broken, nothing interesting is happening.
Almost as if by design, 10yr yields topped out at 2.239. While there's no rule that says our upper range boundary of 2.24 is a hard and fast line in the sand, bouncing this close only reinforces the range-bound reality. Maybe tomorrow morning's Retail Sales data changes that. Maybe it doesn't. It would have to speak very loudly and cause a fairly big break of the range to get much attention with the Fed on tap 3 business days later.
MBS | FNMA 3.0 99-30 : -0-05 | FNMA 3.5 103-04 : -0-05 | FNMA 4.0 105-25 : -0-04 |
Treasuries | 2 YR 0.9470 : +0.0240 | 10 YR 2.2340 : +0.0230 | 30 YR 2.9710 : +0.0070 |
Pricing as of 12/10/15 5:45PMEST |