It's all well and good to highlight North Korea's missile launch as the dominant market mover for the day.  It absolutely was.  But it takes a little bit of extra motivation for bond markets to maintain the overnight gains--especially when other indicators like stocks and Yen already fully erased their reactions to the same headlines.  In other words, bonds sort of WANT to be here.  Or, at the very least, they don't seem too upset about it.

Could this have to do with month-end bond buying needs?  Sure, but that alone wouldn't account for the ease with which we closed at the lowest yields of 2017.  Is there still probably some positivity to give back if Korean tensions continue to fade?  Yes, probably a bit, but it's not yet a given that it would be enough to undo the break below the 2.16% technical floor we were tracking last week.

Watch the attached video for significantly more information and analysis (including the impact on the lock/float stance).  If that sounds really interesting to you, but you can't see the attached video, then you're either not an MBS Live member or you're not logged in.  Both of those things can be changed with a few keystrokes.  Both are worth the effort if you're serious about originating or following interest rate trends.