MBS Day Ahead: Today's Claim to Fame is that NFP is Tomorrow

It's a somewhat cynical point of view, but what is the Thursday before Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) if not a place-holder that can't ever come close to the market moving potential of the following session?  This wasn't quite as true when Europe was more warmly ablaze in systemic flames (because the ECB almost always holds its policy-setting meeting on the first Thursday of the month), but it was still unequivocally the case.

Many Thursdays are not without their share of relevant data!  Today is on the light side, with just Jobless Claims to anchor the headline 8:30am slot.  There are ancillary reports, but not of them market movers in and of themselves.  On the event calendar, the week's last Treasury auction wraps up at 1pm with 30yr Bonds.  There's always a chance for a more pronounced move after the last auction of the week, but here again, anything that happens, does so in the shadow of tomorrow's colossus.

None of that makes today immune from playing host to market movement.  It's simply a strong suggestion toward containment.  To get an idea of what a contained move would look like, check out the trend channel on 10yr yields (it's actually a linear regression, so the middle line perfectly bisects all the trading since Nov 1st.  There's a little bit of secret sauce in how I determined exactly where to place the outer lines, but the important part is that they pass through 3.03 and 2.95 today.

(Unrelated point of order: don't forget that today is the "Notification Day" for Fannie and Freddie 30yr Fixed MBS, meaning that after business today, February's coupons will be the representative for prices.  Because they trade at a lower price than the outbound January coupons, this will give the appearance of a drop in prices).