Referring to today as "modestly" weaker is a debatable choice.  On the one hand, trading levels hit the 3pm close in modestly weaker territory.  No argument there!  On the other hand, in the absence of yesterday, those would have been the best closing levels in more than a month.  

While that's a nice thing to be able to say, it's not as if we've arrived there at the end of some hard-fought battle.  Global financial markets are increasingly nervous that the longstanding economic expansion following the financial crisis is going to "die of old age."  Trade war fears are just the latest potential harbinger.  Stocks and bonds are both generally consolidating after the tax-bill-driven run-up in early 2018.  They're now asking themselves, was that it?

That meditation on mortality accounts for the general strength in bonds over the past few weeks.  Today's individual developments account for very little--if anything.  There was economic data this morning in the form of Jobless Claims and Q1 Final GDP, but neither registered any response in bonds (nor would we have expected them to).  The afternoon's 7yr Treasury auction was roughly the same story.  While we occasionally see some shift in bond trading tone after the auction cycle for any given week is over, we don't generally see any immediate response to 7's.