MBS MID-DAY: Range-Bound, Quiet, Problems With Ceilings

MBS Pricing Snapshot

Things have been painfully slow so far this morning with no scheduled data, and no juicy headline market movers. Combine this with Asia thinner overnight participation (Asia out on holiday) and the session has simply been a moderate risk-on move during European hours followed by a moderate risk-off move in domestic hours.

the latter has seen 10yr yields fall back in line with Friday afternoon lows, but we have yet to break through those, let alone to test Friday morning's 1.937's (currently 1.9554). S&P's have come off their Friday afternoon range, by a paltry "point or two." It's all very "incidental" and "inconsequential" as far as how the relative movement looks on screens.

MBS are looking better by comparison, largely because they were so much worse by comparison at the end of last week. Thursday and Friday's underperformance set up Fannie 3.0s for a modest dose of outperformance since the open. Whereas 10yr Treasuries are 2 ticks lower in price (0.5 bps higher in yield) since Friday afternoon, MBS are 3 ticks higher.

If the risk-off trends continue through the 11am completion of the scheduled Fed Treasury purchases, positive reprice risk would begin increasing at 103-05 for the "early crowd" lenders. This is a stretch right now though. Given the quietness of the day, those 11:02am Fed results could have a perceptible impact in either direction.

With Japan and China both on holiday on Monday, the overnight session didn't begin for Treasuries until 2:30am (normally 7pm on Sunday night). This made for understandably light volume by the time domestic trading got underway, and exclusively driven by European markets.

To that end, German Bunds moved quickly higher in yield from 3am to 5am, perfectly retracing the weakness they experienced during Friday morning. Treasuries followed, but to a lesser extent, with 10's only moving up to 1.98 before domestic trading got underway.

Volume picked up from "non-existent" to modest around 7:20am with 10's moving lower in yield from there. MBS opened a few ticks weaker from Friday's POST-ROLL close of 103-00, but have since come back to within a tick of unchanged (currently 102-31+, down half a tick vs Friday).

10's have continued the march lower as domestic traders reject the overnight highs, currently down to 1.954. It's been a "risk-off swing for stocks as well with S&P futures shedding 3-4 points from overnight highs, now down to 1513 which is roughly in line with levels seen during the European open.

There is no significant economic data set for today, so the stock lever could continue to be in play in a general sense. Technicals and tradeflows, along with any potential headlines should help to flesh out the rest of the motivational picture.