Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin had the mic this morning at the NC Chamber of Commerce and one of his comments does a good job of capturing the essence of a very hot topic.  In not so many words, Barkin said lower wage employees have increased aspirations for what they need to go back to work. 

In other words, we're all still waiting to see what the labor market looks like when we can no longer lean on enhanced unemployment benefits as an explanation for what is still a very big chasm between pre-covid labor metrics and the current reality.  While we wait, markets seem disinclined to make any big bets.

In fact, the consolidation range seen so far in 2021 has been far narrower than we were prepared for based on the last major period of consolidation in late 2019 (something we referred to as "the hitch" in previous commentary).

Today's calendar will be hard-pressed to offer any meaningful insights that push bonds to challenge any of these range boundaries.  The more relevant reports hit at 10am with Consumer Confidence and New Home Sales, but neither would be considered "top tier" when it comes to their market movement potential.  Even then, with 10yr yields at 1.60% and the nearest big-picture pivot point at 1.52/1.53%, it's hard to imagine anything prompting such a move short of some massively negative, unexpected surprise.