The Day Ahead: EU Summit Arrives, Data Increases, Bond Markets Face Decisions

Yesterday, we surmised that markets had bigger fish to fry than meager Pending Home Sales and Durable Goods reports or even the afternoon's 5yr Auction.  But even we held our cynical breath at 1:02pm after the results of a particularly nasty Treasury auction made us think twice about our stance on the consolidating range waiting for Thursday and Friday.

Our fears were soon to be allayed as yesterday's price action didn't merely "sorta support" that stance, but it out-and-out confirmed it.  Here's two day's of charts of 10yr yields for you--the lower one being updated with yesterday's trades:

C'mon... that's a pretty narrow bullseye to hit!  Way to go Bond Markets!  You're the "equivocalest!"  (as opposed to someone who can't decide what to sing next, or an "equivocalist").  Ok... Treasuries (and other parts of the fixed income universe) are the "most equivocal" (thank you!) they've been in a while.  Here's the rub: there may have been a point in time where the psychology represented by the lines above was thinking it would find cause to move higher or lower outside this triangle in this week's EU Summit.  

But now the technical patterns are all dressed up with nowhere to go, as it were, given the rampant deflation of expectations for the EU Summit that begins today.  With Merkel saying such things as "Europe will not have shared total liability for debt as long as she lives," not to mention the two most important attendees from Greece won't be able to make it, the Summit has gone from being a hotly-anticipated guidance-giving event to more of fashionable thing of which to be dismissive.

But beware jumping from one bandwagon to another.  Even if it's not for the reasons initially expected, the charts don't look like they've lost much of their 'hot anticipation' for the upcoming 2 days.  Whether or not that means EU headlines will be the catalyst, we're not sure, but we wouldn't rule out bigger moves in the coming days just because of the fashionable cynicism.  The better question is this: will a break outside the triangle in the chart above (red lines) result in a test of the early June yield lows or the 1.68-ish epic pivot point on the high side?  Those eventualities would be far more interesting than the triangle breakout that we can clearly see WILL happen today or tomorrow. 

Helping round out the picture today in addition to the beginning of the EU Summit, there's a decent smattering of other data at home and abroad today, including German Unemployment, Euro-zone Economic Sentiment (we guess "bad..."  Is it bad?  Is that one of our choices?),  US GDP, Weekly Jobless Claims and the 7yr Note Auction.  Additionally, the European Commission gives it's quarterly report on the Euro Area, presumably before, during, or after the Summit in Brussels (no one really has any idea how things work 'over there' or what's going on.  That's why yields are so damn low).