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...
Mon, Jul 31 2017, 5:19 PM
Today's economic data consisted only of Chicago PMI (sometimes a decent market mover) and Pending Home Sales (rarely a noticeable market mover). It a...
Mon, Jul 31 2017, 9:09 AM
Last Friday's AM commentary had a detailed write-up on the significance of " month-end bond buying ." Here's a link to that, and here's a link to our ...
Fri, Jul 28 2017, 6:30 PM
Overnight weakness almost ruined it, but 10yr yields just barely held inside the necessary levels to claim their third straight "inside day." In ot...
Fri, Jul 28 2017, 10:05 AM
We often talk about the month-end trading environment as relatively more supportive for bond markets--all other things being equal. Reason for this a...
Thu, Jul 27 2017, 4:41 PM
This week continues to be all about Tuesday for bond markets. That was the day with the rather violent, inexplicable sell-off that took yields from...
Thu, Jul 27 2017, 9:40 AM
What is a tradeflow? We have a primer that attempts to answer that question on MBS Live (this one), but even after reading that multiple times, you ...
Wed, Jul 26 2017, 6:44 PM
Today's focus was understandably on the Fed Announcement, and indeed, most of the movement followed it. But interestingly enough, the biggest volume ...
Wed, Jul 26 2017, 2:02 PM
(Additions underlined, deletions struck through)
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in May June indicates that the ...
Wed, Jul 26 2017, 9:43 AM
Remember 2015? The Fed spent the whole year talking about hiking rates for the first after spending years at 0% and ultimately didn't get around to i...
Tue, Jul 25 2017, 4:24 PM
Bonds sold off aggressively today, for a combination of reasons that are tremendously unsatisfying in a traditional market-watching sense. For exam...
Tue, Jul 25 2017, 9:21 AM
After enjoying a nice rally since July 10th, bond markets are taking the 2 days leading up to tomorrow's Fed announcement to book some profits and get...
Mon, Jul 24 2017, 5:18 PM
How's that for an exciting headline? At least it's an " extreme ," technically--just not the sort of extreme that would pique our interest (but still...
Mon, Jul 24 2017, 10:03 AM
In March 2011, the Fed announced it would change things up with respect to its policy announcements. Although there would still be 8 of them each yea...
Fri, Jul 21 2017, 6:09 PM
As expected, today could be better characterized as a highly-regulated narcotic sleep aid than an interesting trading day for bond markets. The dream...
Fri, Jul 21 2017, 9:29 AM
One of the hallmarks of classic (read: old school) technical analysis is the role of volume in confirming market movements. For instance, if 10yr y...
Thu, Jul 20 2017, 7:06 PM
Talk about your anticlimactic conclusions! It's not that the European Central Bank (ECB) was likely to make any meaningful changes in its policy stan...
Thu, Jul 20 2017, 8:33 AM
Mario Draghi is the President of the European Central Bank (ECB). That's the EU's version of the Fed. Like the Fed in the past, the ECB is still ad...
Wed, Jul 19 2017, 5:56 PM
Much has been made of tomorrow's European Central Bank (ECB) Announcement, mainly because of its proximity to ECB President Draghi's comments on June ...
Wed, Jul 19 2017, 9:41 AM
This commentary will begin it's life as the "day ahead" entry for July 19th, 2017, but it may as well be a "knowledge base" entry for the validity of ...
Tue, Jul 18 2017, 4:45 PM
If there is one thematic event at the heart of the past 4 weeks, it was a series of comments from European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi b...
Tue, Jul 18 2017, 9:12 AM
It remains the case that Thursday is the focal point of the week, with European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi set to tell reporters how fa...
Mon, Jul 17 2017, 4:57 PM
Today was an exceptionally light day in terms of news, volume, participation, and everything else we normally care about when it comes to market mov...
Mon, Jul 17 2017, 9:18 AM
It's the middle of summertime, the middle of a month, and there's a light economic and event calendar in the US. These are prime conditions for tra...
Fri, Jul 14 2017, 4:58 PM
Today was bittersweet for bond markets, with strong gains in the morning, and an almost complete reversal by the end of the day. As expected, the e...
Fri, Jul 14 2017, 8:59 AM
Today begins with weaker economic data helping bonds move into stronger territory. Investors had been eagerly awaiting the Retail Sales and CPI data ...