- Treasuries flat overnight, despite various cues in other markets
- Bonds move weaker following ADP data, but damage immediately contained
- Rest of day spent sideways-to-slightly-stronger, recovering some of the post-ADP weakness
- MBS down less than an eighth. 10yr yield up less than a bp
Today was largely a maintenance session for bond markets. It now seems clear that bond markets came out of the gate with heavy conviction yesterday and accomplished most of the more urgent trading goals before today's session. Specifically, 10yr yields made it very close to 1.84, and then simply held very close to 1.84 today. After all, a few weeks ago, this is the level that almost anyone would have pointed to as the most likely line of defense against a bigger move toward higher rates. It's definitely the place you go when you want to be ready for a big move in either direction.
This wasn't quite so obvious yesterday, but today's trading offered some clues. The biggest clue would be the fact that bonds traded a narrow, slightly stronger range following the stock market opening bell, yet stocks improved during the same time. Elsewhere, German Bund yields and oil prices also moved higher. Finally, corporate bond issuance continues to create a meaningful amount of "supply" for markets.
All of those cues would seem to imply more pressure on bonds than we actually saw. The conclusion we're left with is that trading levels simply arrived at the stadium a bit early and took their assigned seats. The game begins over the next 2 days.
MBS | FNMA 3.0 102-04 : -0-02 | ||
Treasuries | 10 YR 1.8350 : +0.0000 | ||
Pricing as of 3/2/16 5:38PMEST |