The past two sessions have been fairly nondescript in the bigger picture. Both have traversed almost exactly the same trading range. Both have exhibited very little direct attachment to news or events. And neither have offered up a meaningful attempt to break out of recently established ranges. Incidentally, the same patterns are playing out in multiple markets beyond the bond market.
At least for bonds, today's spinning wheel of indecisiveness stopped on luckier numbers. In other words, the trading range was the same as yesterday, but we closed near the best levels of that range. I'd view this as a factor of random timing before I'd jump to the conclusion that bonds are about to rally. While the latter is certainly possible, there's a lot riding on tomorrow's CPI data as well as the tax bill headlines set to come out in the 2nd half of the week.
As for today, Fannie 3.5 MBS gained an eighth of a point and Treasuries outperformed, with 10yr yields gaining more than a quarter point in price, and falling more than 3bps in yield. Credit the latter to some relief after working through 2 big days of corporate bond issuance, as well as a rebound in the yield curve trading that had been contributing to recent volatility (discussed in greater detail for MBS Live members in the attached video).