Wed, Dec 30 2015, 5:59 PM
The overnight session was much less interesting for Treasuries today (compared to yesterday). In the sense that European bonds weren't pushing yields...
Tue, Dec 29 2015, 9:14 AM
There continues to be little to observe or conclude in this 'holiday-light' trading environment. While today's data will provide at least something...
Tue, Dec 29 2015, 5:09 PM
Treasuries were significantly weaker today as oil, Europe, and equities all bounced higher. The move was led by a reversal in European bond markets...
Mon, Dec 28 2015, 9:15 AM
2015's winter holidays are laid out nicely for financial markets. Both Christmas and New Years Day fall on Fridays. This makes it much easier to pre...
Mon, Dec 28 2015, 7:35 PM
While oil prices did move lower in the overnight session, and while stock markets followed that move, bond markets were a bit more independent. Speci...
Thu, Dec 24 2015, 7:32 AM
It's hard to look at the ultra long term correlation between Fed Funds and mortgage rates and NOT be concerned about rates moving higher in 2016. ...
Thu, Dec 24 2015, 1:53 PM
stone silent and slightly positive
no economic motivation
a few traders closed short positions, which helps bonds improve
Today was by far...
Wed, Dec 23 2015, 7:32 AM
It's no mystery that bond markets have been remarkably flat this holiday season. While the absolute range in 10yr yields during that time has been ...
Wed, Dec 23 2015, 5:32 PM
While "whatever it takes to stay sideways" makes it sound like some sort of passionate goal, it's really just a byproduct of the season (or a simple...
Tue, Dec 22 2015, 7:33 AM
Today's chart illustrates the liquidity challenges that crop up at this time of year. The difference between last Friday and yesterday was really nig...
Tue, Dec 22 2015, 7:06 PM
Super light volume and participation
Data was overlooked (on-target GDP and weaker Existing Sales)
Oil and European yields pushed US rates a bit...
Mon, Dec 21 2015, 7:33 AM
This week represents an age-old question for financial markets: Will markets be moved more by the results of the data or simply due to the illiquid ...
Mon, Dec 21 2015, 6:44 PM
Heading into this week, we were well within our right to expect things to be slow for financial markets. Christmas is on Friday. Thursday is a half ...
Fri, Dec 18 2015, 8:30 AM
With the relatively extreme importance of a Fed meeting that fell on December 16th, it was easier to overlook the fact that Christmas is next week . ...
Fri, Dec 18 2015, 5:40 PM
Low volume sets in for holidays
Asian markets shed risk on China/Japan headlines
Another new multi-year low for oil
stocks slide
all of th...
Thu, Dec 17 2015, 7:33 AM
Yesterday Yellen said that economic expansions don't die of old age . What she meant to say is that the Fed has been thinking a lot about the irrefu...
Thu, Dec 17 2015, 5:45 PM
Today didn't add much to the bigger picture. With the Fed hike so well telegraphed and the weakness over the previous 3 days, we may well have assume...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 8:20 PM
MBS traded less than a 3/8ths point range to end down an eighth of a point (Fannie 3.5) and 10yr yields traded an 8 bp range to end LESS THAN ONE BAS...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 7:33 AM
Sometimes we approach days with big-ticket events with great anticipation only to be let down by the amount of excitement offered. Today is a bit di...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 2:09 PM
Naturally, this is the most changed Fed Announcement in recent memory. Strike-through indicates previous text. Underline indicates new text.
Releas...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 7:33 AM
Bond markets sold-off in a fairly big way yesterday, and for no particular reason apart from the fact that they rallied in a fairly big way on Friday....
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 5:38 PM
There's very little to report--with respect to the second half of the day--that hasn't already been covered in the quick and dirty bullet points from ...
Tue, Dec 15 2015, 1:34 PM
Here is the quickest and dirtiest way to look at bond movements over the past few days, in bullet points:
This month's ECB shocker (12/3) defle...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 7:33 AM
Roughly 3 months after the Fed's last stellar opportunity to enact its long-anticipated rate hike, we come to meeting that is all but certain to host ...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 5:44 PM
It's the latest fad: junk bonds! You might not even know what that is, and you certainly don't need to. A junk bond is another term for a "high yi...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 2:46 PM
With the much-anticipated Fed rate hike only 2 days away, volatility continues to build in financial markets. It's not that investors disagree abou...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 7:32 AM
If this week's economic data and events were auditioning for some reality show, market participants would be like the judges. This would be like one ...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 6:46 PM
If you didn't catch the mid-day commentary , it has a good recap of most of the day's activity. If you're not into links, here are the important par...
Fri, Dec 11 2015, 1:58 PM
Life isn't always fair for MBS. Sure, there was QE3 which specifically targeted MBS over Treasuries, leaving the latter out in the cold on a relative...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 9:09 AM
My apologies for the commentary coming out later than normal a few times this week. I've been doing battle with water here in the Pacific Northwest, ...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 5:46 PM
At 9am, domestic bond markets were just barely clawing their way into positive territory after an uneventful overnight trading session. That made f...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 1:44 PM
There continues to be very little to discuss in terms of interesting, relevant market developments this week. Chalk this up to the theme we've discus...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 9:06 AM
Are you more of a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person? There's something for everyone hiding in yesterday's ostensibly boring bond mark...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 5:21 PM
Today's bond market movements were a bit more pronounced than yesterday's, but similar in some regards. The first similarly was the inconsequential...
Wed, Dec 9 2015, 1:23 PM
Bond markets began the domestic session in slightly weaker territory after an overnight session that was almost completely uneventful. The two key t...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 7:32 AM
"Distance makes the heart grow fonder," as they say. To some extent, it's the same for bonds markets and trading inspiration: the lower the inspirati...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 7:11 PM
Bond markets had an exceedingly acceptable day. MBS and and Treasuries were generally in stronger territory by the end of the day, but by too small a...
Tue, Dec 8 2015, 2:12 PM
The overnight session was both informative and positive for bond markets. The informative part was the technical floor seen in 10yr yields (2.20) a...
Mon, Dec 7 2015, 7:33 AM
This week begins not with any sort of exciting data or scheduled events, but rather with a mission: sorting out whether last week's violent spike on T...
Mon, Dec 7 2015, 6:46 PM
Bond markets put in another solid day of gains today, and have now erased more than half of last Thursday's losses. If we go all the way back to the ...
Mon, Dec 7 2015, 2:39 PM
Bond markets began the overnight session in just slightly weaker territory, but never entered into a negative trend during. European bond markets ral...
Fri, Dec 4 2015, 7:33 AM
In yesterday's recap, I asserted that the crazy sell-off was 100% about Draghi and negative infinity percent about Yellen's congressional testimony. ...
Fri, Dec 4 2015, 7:02 PM
If the Draghi sell-off was an unmitigated disaster yesterday, it's only a plain old disaster today. In fact, even 'disaster' may be too strong a wor...
Fri, Dec 4 2015, 2:07 PM
This morning's NFP data came in just a bit hotter than expected at 211k vs a median forecast of 200k. Revisions were fairly strong, but wage growth...
Thu, Dec 3 2015, 10:03 PM
It was Draghi! Not Yellen!
You know me (maybe?). I hate those cheesy headlines with the "THIS" that alludes to what the headline should have jus...
Thu, Dec 3 2015, 7:33 AM
Remember 2011-2012? Sure there was some fun domestic stuff, like the first major debt ceiling battle, Operation Twist, and QE3, but for the most part...
Thu, Dec 3 2015, 1:46 PM
The headline is no joke . In terms of the change from the previous close, bond market have lost more ground today than any other day since mid 2013....
Wed, Dec 2 2015, 7:32 AM
I saw a lot of this type of stuff yesterday, both in the news and in less public circles: something to the effect of the recently weak data giving th...
Wed, Dec 2 2015, 7:14 PM
Bond markets had been trending in an unfriendly direction all day . The charts on the dashboard don't capture the strength of the trend because it b...
Wed, Dec 2 2015, 2:17 PM
Yesterday's ISM data may have sparked some hope for a long-shot, come-from-behind, Cinderella story victory for a weak economy making an argument agai...