The Day Ahead: Last Chance for an Equivocal Session

Typically, the Wednesday before an NFP Friday would bring ADP Private Payrolls at 8:15am, but due to the holiday-shortened week, ADP will now arrive on Thursday.  That fact deprives today's session of much of the gravity it might otherwise possess.  With ADP teaming up with Jobless Claims and ISM Non-Manufacturing on Thursday, it would be a surprise not to see a noticeable NFP lead-off take shape.  That leaves today as the last chance for an equivocal session before Friday's NFP.

Even then, there's no guarantee that today stays calm.  Geopolitical risk remains a wild card for markets, even if one more frequently played by stocks vs bonds.  Thankfully, bond markets have carved out a bit of a pre-NFP range that will allow us to assess whether "something new" is going on or not.  The clear favorite for a central pivot point is 2.81 in 10yr yields, which has been crossed only 3 times recently.  The same level was also the most central pivot during the bounce in 2010.  On either side, there has been an 11bp range that's held up almost perfectly.  Any early "lead-off's" would be seen as moving over 2.92 or under 2.70.

For the sake of comparison, here's how MBS have been treating the same time frame relative to Treasuries.  In the following chart, we're looking at Fannie 4.0 yields in order to show the correlation, but the lines in question correspond to the same old technical levels that have been on the radar for weeks: 102-02, 102-22, and 103-16.