Sometimes the market moves in clear response to a headline event or the scheduled release of an economic report.  We have clear examples of this recently.  last week's Iran-related escalation (and de-escalation) had massive and immediate impacts that lined up perfectly with key events in the news.  This week's most noticeable move followed perfectly on the heels of yesterday's big beat in the Philly Fed Index (an economic report that frequently moves markets when it's much better or worse than expected).

Now today, we're seeing a similar level of movement but without any over cause and effect with respect to news or data.  That said, there is still something to connect it to! 

Simply put, markets moved when a certain portion of the trading community began its day and when a certain exchange came online for the first time.  For the bond market, this is typically 8:20am Eastern time when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opens for Treasury pit trading.  There are also traders at the CME who begin active electronic trading at the same time even though they're not compelled to wait until then.  It's a similar story for stocks, but with a much bigger piece of the market coming online at the 9:30am NYSE open.

In both cases, the sudden appearance of new trading ideas and additional trading dollars can have an immediate and obvious impact on trading levels.  While it's not as logical or satisfying as pinning blame on a shocking economic report, it's no less of a market mover on some days.  

Interestingly enough, the additional selling in bonds heading into 9am ALSO didn't have a clear correlation to data or events.  This offers a clue that perhaps traders are taking the morning to close out the week's trading positions ahead of a 3-day weekend (the extra uncertainty of an extra non-trading day can lead to more "position-squaring" than normal).  With 20/20 hindsight, we can at least conclude this makes some sense given the trend of the first four days of the week.  Either way, bonds are still well within the bigger picture trend and won't be able to do anything to change that today.