The Day Ahead: Bond Markets Lead-Off, Here's the Pitch!

The bases may not be loaded yet for MBS or our preferred directional guidance giver Treasuries, but at two runners are on, and both are taking their lead-offs.  For MBS, this means that Fannie 3.0s have extended above the 104-19 levels that have capped them so far this year (until yesterday) and that 10yr yields have inched below the mid 1.67's on several occasions this week and late last week.  Incidentally, both of these base-runners returned to base by yesterday's close and are ready for several pitches today.

The first big pitch will come from ADP Private Payrolls at 8:15am, a report that's been an increasingly accurate indicator of the official Non-Farm Private Payrolls that arrive on Friday morning.  Markets are still feeling out the correlation under the new ADP methodology, but it's generally "better" than it was, so we can expect more reaction to ADP until/unless it strikes out.  

The afternoon sees and even bigger power hitter in the form of the FOMC Announcement at 2pm, but sans Bernanke Press Conference and Forecasts.  At the very least, markets seem to be expecting no incremental increase in the urgency of exiting or tapering QE.  Indeed, such a thing would seem like a counterintuitive surprise given the crop of recent data.  Between the two all-stars, ISM's Manufacturing index stands as a solid contact hitter whose performance won't win or lose the game, but it could make things more interesting while we wait for the Fed.