Tue, Sep 5 2017, 5:01 PM
Bonds rallied significantly today on a confluence of news. Disparate events and headlines hit markets at just the right time and in just the right ...
Tue, Sep 5 2017, 9:05 AM
Global financial markets moved away from risk to start the holiday-shortened week as more North Korean missile drama made the news over the weekend....
Fri, Sep 1 2017, 6:06 PM
We talk a lot about participation among traders dropping off at mid-day when European markets close, but today's version turned bond markets into a ve...
Fri, Sep 1 2017, 8:30 AM
I wish Who Wants to be a Millionaire was still a popular show. Its catchphrases and terminology work really well with bond market psychology. Often ...
Thu, Aug 31 2017, 5:32 PM
Without month-end trading needs and in the absence of one of the most relevant inflation reports, today may well have been a typically slow summerti...
Thu, Aug 31 2017, 8:34 AM
This week has admittedly been the same sort of summertime trading week that we've seen for most of July and August--perhaps even more so . By that I...
Wed, Aug 30 2017, 5:50 PM
Bond markets had a reasonably good day, all things considered. The caveat is that we shouldn't read much of anything into today's trading because i...
Wed, Aug 30 2017, 10:09 AM
We've seen it before and we'll likely see it again. Bond markets (and most other markets, for that matter) respond quickly to some unexpected headlin...
Tue, Aug 29 2017, 6:28 PM
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 ...
Tue, Aug 29 2017, 9:48 AM
Amid the recent slow summertime trading, there are only a few things that stand a chance of catching the market's collective eye. Somewhere near the ...
Mon, Aug 28 2017, 7:25 PM
It's not normal for a 5yr Treasury auction to cause the biggest move in any given day for bond markets. That's an honor typically reserved for 10yr...
Mon, Aug 28 2017, 9:35 AM
Sometimes, events are such that the typical summertime trading patterns aren't easily seen in terms of trading ranges and volatility. For instance, i...
Fri, Aug 25 2017, 5:54 PM
Today's Jackson Hole symposium couldn't have been any more anticlimactic even if this year's topic were "How to Deliver Anticlimactic Speeches on Mone...
Fri, Aug 25 2017, 9:58 AM
I've waited until the day itself to abbreviate the Fed's Jackson Hole symposium with the beloved "J-Hole." Pretty impressive considering how much fun...
Thu, Aug 24 2017, 4:50 PM
Bond markets have been generally rallying since early July. The apparent inspiration for that rally was the sell-off that preceded it. That weakne...
Thu, Aug 24 2017, 9:22 AM
Most of my analysis in July and August focused on the positive technical boundary (aka "floor") at 2.21-2.22. As of yesterday, that floor is increasi...
Wed, Aug 23 2017, 5:26 PM
If there were a magical ratio comparing the overall movement in bond markets to the relevance of the factors motivating the movement, it would be off...
Wed, Aug 23 2017, 9:25 AM
Coincidentally, yesterday's Day Ahead talked about "pivot points." Now today, we see a prime example of a pivot point in action. Although I labele...
Tue, Aug 22 2017, 4:23 PM
I'm not shy about dismissing the conventional wisdom of bond yields and stock prices following each other. We're talking about some iteration of th...
Tue, Aug 22 2017, 10:32 AM
We have a dedicated primer on pivot points here . But let's look at a timely example with the pivot points we've been tracking in recent weeks. Act...
Mon, Aug 21 2017, 4:47 PM
It's a good thing financial media outlets aren't too shy about covering topics outside the financial sphere because without the eclipse, there would h...
Mon, Aug 21 2017, 9:56 AM
Welcome! Here is a safe haven from all of the eclipse talk. It won't be mentioned at all in this article. Never mind that it's in the title and the...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 8:20 PM
In the Day Ahead, we discussed bond traders' probable goals regarding keeping things as calm as possible. This depended on unexpected headlines and m...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 7:34 AM
A maritime analogy for bond trading in the Summertime...
In the summer months especially, there's a boat-friendly baseline weather pattern offshore...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 6:01 PM
What do you get when bond markets embark on a snowball rally due to headlines concerning Trump's Economic Advisor Gary Cohn? A delicious "Snow Cohn,"...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 10:22 AM
With this morning's econ data already out and having no effect on bond markets, the only other report for the week is tomorrow morning's Consumer Sent...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 5:28 PM
Today looked like it would be all about waiting for the Fed Minutes to see if there were any surprises. That plan began in fairly good shape, with on...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 9:32 AM
Today's biggest calendar item is the release of the FOMC Minutes at 2pm. The Minutes provide synopsis of the meeting that took place in the 2 days le...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 4:15 PM
Today was mostly about North Korean de-escalation, and somewhat about stronger economic data. If you haven't heard 43 times already, North Korea grac...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 9:08 AM
Geopolitical risk is one of the most intuitive market movers for bonds. Threats of nuclear attacks from North Korea (as well as the rhetorical respon...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 5:16 PM
Bond markets lost ground today, with all of the weakness arriving during the overnight session. The weakness was driven by a general "risk-on" move...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 10:32 AM
If you haven't seen/read my primers on various technical analysis topics, they're linked at certain points in the text below, and will be helpful in m...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 5:59 PM
Bond markets ultimately rallied modestly following today's much-anticipated CPI data. This is a departure from recent norms as the last 3 reports...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 8:28 AM
After a longstanding reign as one of the most meaningful market movers, inflation data became an outcast for most of the recovery from the financial c...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 4:29 PM
It's hard to appreciate just how different the trading session was for stocks compared to bonds. To be sure, a near 5bp drop in 10yr yields is "nice,...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 10:02 AM
In terms of 10yr yields, bond markets have been locked in the same narrow range for a week and half. Even when the range was only 2 days old last wee...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 6:10 PM
Bonds had already begun the process of rallying in response to geopolitical risk yesterday afternoon. Notably, the headlines hit after the 3pm CME ...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 10:05 AM
There are several definitions of "pain trade" floating around on the web, and I'm not a huge fan of any of them. The top google hit is particularly b...
Tue, Aug 8 2017, 7:15 PM
Bonds began the day in moderately weaker territory and continued to lose ground through the early afternoon. After consolidating in extreme fashion...
Tue, Aug 8 2017, 10:05 AM
The extent to which inflation-related metrics have come into focus is uncanny relative to just how unimportant they'd been to markets for most of th...
Mon, Aug 7 2017, 5:55 PM
Bond markets began the week in underwhelming fashion, with both MBS and Treasuries ending the day very close to unchanged compared to Friday's latest ...
Mon, Aug 7 2017, 10:08 AM
Last week's NFP was eerily predictable. Either that, or I got lucky.
My thought was that the market had been fairly range-bound and especially d...
Fri, Aug 4 2017, 5:55 PM
The week began on Tuesday, for all intents and purposes. July's "month-end" trading generally took place by last Friday and Monday was left as a mere...
Fri, Aug 4 2017, 9:13 AM
My commentary took a bearish turn , essentially saying that bond markets had done what they could to price-in a poor NFP number and that anything out...
Thu, Aug 3 2017, 7:20 PM
I hate to say anything bad about bond market gains. Bond market gains are among a few of my favorite things, after all! I also hope I'm wrong in thi...
Thu, Aug 3 2017, 9:05 AM
The longer the post-election trade plays out (in 3 months, it will have been a year!), the flatter it looks. There have essentially been two similar...
Wed, Aug 2 2017, 5:14 PM
The chart in this morning's Day Ahead showed consolidation patterns (lower highs and higher lows) in both German Bunds and US Treasuries. For the l...
Wed, Aug 2 2017, 9:25 AM
With this morning's ADP data and Treasury Refunding Announcement (lays out the slate of auction sizes for the upcoming fiscal quarter ending on Octobe...
Tue, Aug 1 2017, 4:28 PM
Was it "new month" trading? Or was it a reaction to abysmal sales data from GM? Does it matter if the net effect was a nice move lower for rates? ...
Tue, Aug 1 2017, 9:53 AM
"Impending breakout" sounds a bit more dramatic than reality may prove to be, but one never can be sure what the future will hold for bond markets. W...
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