Global financial markets are entirely open today for the first time since last Thursday, thus giving us a chance to see if this month's momentum will mark some sort of shift from the past 2 (which were both awful).  With last Thursday being April 1st, that was technically the 1st day of the month, but many traders who were in a position to unveil some grand new strategy for the month would have instead waited for holiday-weekend illiquidity to pass, or at the very least, for Friday morning's NFP.  In other words, today is the first full-fledged trading day of the new month, and a chance to finally pursue the momentum shift that has, thus far, proven to be a frustrating combination of logical, hopeful, and elusive.

Are things different this time?  Again, it's increasingly fair to HOPE for such things.  After all, big selling sprees only last so long before technicals take over and push back in a direction that's either sideways or slightly lower.  But similar hopes have been dashed on the rocks of rising rate reality several times on the way up--most notably at 1.62% in early/mid March.

March 17th--St. Patrick's Day--marked the first decisive break over 1.62%.  The same level would be a reasonable benchmark for progress this time around--a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow if you will--with the best outcome being a decisive break below 1.62%.