Bonds ended in the green today, albeit just barely.  Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing, but today's example leaves a bit to be desired.

I should start off by saying that today could have been much worse than it was.  Indeed, any time we can avoid ending in the red these days is an opportunity to count blessings.  

With those disclaimers out of the way, I'll get back to the lament.  At the simplest level, generally negative trends generally continued.  Case in point:

In other words, we may have technically been in positive territory versus the 5pm levels from Friday, but we can all agree those 5pm levels were ridiculously unpleasant.   

The mid-day turn around occurred 

A) right on a pivot point with Thursday's highs

B) immediately following the European close,and

C) immediately following confirmation that Congress had cobbled together a passable stop-gap bill to end the shut-down.

In other words, it wasn't necessarily all about the shutdown bill, but even then, the amount of movement we saw wasn't much to write home about in the bigger picture.  While I don't like the shutdown as a first-line explanation for big moves, I'm fine with giving it some credit for today's reversal.  Beyond this, a draft of the new infrastructure spending plan was leaked and/or circulating around the same time.  This too, could have added to the pressure.

However we account for it, the net effect is bad.  Bonds hit their weakest 3pm close since early 2014 and have yet to mount any sort of convincing counterattack.  Until that happens, stay safe and defensive  when it comes to lock/float strategy.  Pretty simple.