MBS AFTERNOON: Off The Lows, Closer To Highs As Close Approaches

As lights at trade desks flicker in anticipation of their nightly time-off, we're off the worst levels of the day, closer to the better levels of the day actually, and all the while have adhered perfectly to the most extreme ends of the expected year end range.  In case this is the first note you're reading from us this week, FOMC announcement comes tomorrow and is probably one of the few, if not the only event worthy of following up such an extreme day where a penultimate range boundary is broken on high volume.  In other words, there are few other days on the calendar this year where we could have broken 3.57 in the 10yr with this volume and still be WAITING for "something else" to either confirm or moderate the movement.

MBS 4.5's are down 9 ticks on the day at 100-27 and the 10yr yield is up 4.2 bps at 3.594.  The Yield Curve remains in a state of dance around all time steeps and is currently at 2.735.  So a healthy combination of extreme change and "no change at all" in that we're at the highest yields in 4 months, yet much of what we rely on for hints of impending change still says UNCERTAINTY and WAITING ON GUIDANCE. If you're here near the end of the day hoping for us to tell you whether you should lock or float into tomorrow, we were actually hoping you could tell us!  Joking aside, its good to remember at times like this that locking and floating is about ALLOCATION and RATIO--Adjusting RISK and REWARD.  Can you risk a continued back up in rates that may last weeks in exchange for a chance to pick up tentative improvements?  If so, float a bit more than what we've been saying you should be floating over the past few weeks, otherwise known as NOT MUCH.