Tue, Aug 11 2015, 12:59 PM
Treasury yields are at their lowest--and MBS at their highest--levels since early June. For 10yr Treasuries specifically, it wouldn't take more than ...
Tue, Aug 11 2015, 7:33 AM
There are no significant economic reports on the calendar today, and the afternoon's 3yr Treasury auction is the lease relevant of the week. Against ...
Tue, Aug 11 2015, 5:57 PM
The Asian, European, and North American trading sessions were all dominated by news that China would devalue its currency. There's much more to tha...
Mon, Aug 10 2015, 8:21 AM
There's no question that things have been going well for bond markets recently--at least for the parts of the bond markets that we care about. The lo...
Mon, Aug 10 2015, 5:37 PM
Today's first significant source of inspiration for bond markets came in the form of comments from Fed Vice Chair Fischer. While he stuck to the same...
Mon, Aug 10 2015, 1:08 PM
Today has been all about yield curve steepening . That means that longer-lasting bonds have been doing worse than shorter term bonds. For instance,...
Fri, Aug 7 2015, 7:33 AM
NFP day is fun. It's one of those days where things can change so much and so quickly in its immediate wake, that it really doesn't make much sense ...
Fri, Aug 7 2015, 6:49 PM
Today's almost perfectly flat (vs last month and expectations) NFP provided a perfect opportunity to see what markets had been afraid of and/or hopefu...
Thu, Aug 6 2015, 10:52 AM
We expected to see some sort of consolidation of the late July bond rally this week. That's a fancy way of saying that markets would probably level-...
Thu, Aug 6 2015, 9:39 PM
It was quite a nice pre-NFP Thursday for bond markets. Trading was uneventful in our favorite sort of way where the gains begin early and losses ne...
Thu, Aug 6 2015, 7:33 AM
The Wednesday before NFP always has at least the ADP numbers to provide volatility potential. It also frequently has ISM Services data as was the cas...
Wed, Aug 5 2015, 11:40 AM
It looks like the nail is in the coffin for the pre-NFP rally potential. There was some small chance today (emphasis on 'small') that economic data...
Wed, Aug 5 2015, 7:33 AM
To be fair to the Wednesdays before NFP, sometimes they get serious and sometimes they don't. As always, the determining factor is whether there is e...
Wed, Aug 5 2015, 6:21 PM
Yesterday afternoon's weak momentum (inspired by comments from Fed's Lockhart) carried over into the overnight session. Additional losses were contai...
Tue, Aug 4 2015, 11:41 AM
It's common to see a pre-NFP consolidation in bond markets. This refers mainly to the Monday and Tuesday of NFP week, especially if the Monday is NOT...
Tue, Aug 4 2015, 7:33 AM
Come Wednesday, we will have entered the final approach to Friday morning's NFP release as ADP and ISM Non-Manufacturing data are likely to set the to...
Tue, Aug 4 2015, 7:24 PM
Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart is a pragmatic and reasonable member of the FOMC. He doesn't consistently grind an axe in the same way that sev...
Mon, Aug 3 2015, 12:44 PM
There's that phrase again: "global growth concerns" --that ridiculously broad concept that speaks to all of the more negative "what ifs" surrounding ...
Mon, Aug 3 2015, 7:33 AM
At times like this in bond market history, the collective psychology is akin to the cliche ne'er-do-well from a book or movie who has finally come i...
Mon, Aug 3 2015, 6:02 PM
There were a few good years in the middle of the financial crisis recovery where inflation data just didn't matter. Various economic reports could in...
Fri, Jul 31 2015, 12:28 PM
Today's market mover came out of left field, and in a big way. The Employment Cost Index is typically a non-event, having only moved markets noticeab...
Fri, Jul 31 2015, 8:58 PM
This morning's Employment Cost Index came out of left field with sobering news for anyone counting on a 2015 Fed Rate hike. Fed Fund Futures (which m...
Fri, Jul 31 2015, 7:33 AM
Yesterday's recap mentioned a 'farewell' to low short term rates despite longer term rates 'faring well.' This is a reference to the major changes th...
Thu, Jul 30 2015, 11:34 AM
Bond markets came into the domestic session in slightly weaker territory owing largely to losses that occurred right at the start of the overnight ses...
Thu, Jul 30 2015, 7:33 AM
The direction of the trend in rates (or "bond markets") varies depending on the time frame in question. For instance, looking back to the 1980's, rat...
Thu, Jul 30 2015, 4:51 PM
As of mid-July bond markets seem to have put their foot down with respect to the relationship between long and short term rates. With the economic ...
Wed, Jul 29 2015, 11:37 AM
Bond markets have continued taking measured steps back from the strongest levels in nearly 3 weeks seen on Monday. So far, today's selling pressure...
Wed, Jul 29 2015, 7:33 AM
Although Pending Home Sales will be out this morning at 10am, and although that's fairly interesting data in its own right, today's broader market foc...
Wed, Jul 29 2015, 6:23 PM
The Fed made a few token changes to its policy statement today, but as expected, no overtures for an impending rate hike. At least that wasn't the ca...
Tue, Jul 28 2015, 11:24 AM
Bond markets pulled back overnight on a combination of global stock market stability and European data. Selling pressure remained this morning as c...
Tue, Jul 28 2015, 7:33 AM
When bond markets have strung together as many winning days as they have recently (or even when they've seen this many consecutive days without any no...
Tue, Jul 28 2015, 5:43 PM
MBS ended the day in slightly weaker territory, and they did so in about the gentlest possible way . The domestic session began with trading levels ...
Mon, Jul 27 2015, 12:10 PM
S&P futures were well-connected with overnight Treasury trading as global weakness set the tone early. Chinese stocks are back in the news with ano...
Mon, Jul 27 2015, 7:33 AM
The last 2 weeks have been woefully uneventful and moderately positive for bond markets. Each week saw modest losses on Monday and gains on each subs...
Mon, Jul 27 2015, 5:48 PM
Bond markets continued their recent trend of moderate improvement today. As has been more commonly the case, Treasuries outperformed MBS, but only ...
Fri, Jul 24 2015, 7:33 AM
What if it's all not enough--the multiple iterations of QE at home, ongoing QE abroad, ultra low rates for longer than they've ever been ultra low, an...
Fri, Jul 24 2015, 5:32 PM
As you may have noticed, there are three MBS Commentary articles every day, regardless of how much ground we need to cover in terms of news, events, a...
Fri, Jul 24 2015, 1:16 PM
I'll be the first to tell you that bond yields don't always follow stocks . Indeed, explicating their complicated relationship was the whole point o...
Thu, Jul 23 2015, 7:33 AM
One of the greatest disservices to the average market-watcher is the age old notion of stocks being the opposite of bonds. This phenomenon is refer...
Thu, Jul 23 2015, 6:00 PM
Jobless Claims were exceptionally strong this morning, coming in low enough for such cute headline phrases as "lowest since 1973." True, the number i...
Thu, Jul 23 2015, 1:20 PM
For the 4th consecutive day, bond market trading was exceptionally calm overnight with Treasury yields continuing to hold the same recent range. Th...
Wed, Jul 22 2015, 7:33 AM
After last month's Existing Home Sales tally came in at an annualized pace of 5.35mln, this month's result will be within striking distance of a 9 yea...
Wed, Jul 22 2015, 5:24 PM
Little has changed from the mid-day summary. In it, we discussed the fact that today's economic data and corporate bond issuance constituted headwind...
Wed, Jul 22 2015, 1:24 PM
Looking at charts, we might well conclude that bond market trading remains uneventful. This wouldn't be a surprise , after all, considering the here...
Tue, Jul 21 2015, 12:42 PM
We've been talking about the lack of passion, news, and trading activity over the past few days, but as of this morning, we'd only really seen rates m...
Tue, Jul 21 2015, 7:33 AM
Australia will release its CPI data today. It doesn't have any bearing on interest rates in the US, and there's no reason for you to know that it's...
Tue, Jul 21 2015, 5:23 PM
Within the recent context of the summer doldrums in bond markets, today was a bit more upbeat. It didn't begin that way though. After a purely flat...
Mon, Jul 20 2015, 7:33 AM
Thanksgiving, Spring Break, or Christmas are the likely candidates for the busiest travel times of the year, right? While that would stand to reason,...
Mon, Jul 20 2015, 5:42 PM
Today's session did a great job sticking to its likely script. That means that it was exceptionally uneventful in terms of volume and volatility. ...
Mon, Jul 20 2015, 1:34 PM
First and foremost, the overriding theme today is that it's every bit the uninspired session we expected it to be. Part of that expectation was that ...