MBS MID-DAY: Bond Markets Remain Under Pressure on Slow Trading Day

By: Matthew Graham •

Asian, European, and domestic markets have all agreed: it's a quiet trading day.  The light volumes make for a situation where it doesn't take much doing to move trading levels.  The result is an amount of market movement that looks like any other day, while the underlying level of activity is quite a bit smaller.

Without any meaningful market-movers overnight, bonds took cues from equities as well as technical trading considerations.  In that regard, last week's positive momentum showed early warning signs of reversing by Friday and we have moderate follow-through on that reversal this morning.

Emphasizing the slowness and lack of trade-inspiring events, the fastest-paced movement of the day was brought on by mere observation of other trades.  As we sometimes discuss "traders watching other trades" can be a market mover in and of itself. 

This was the case around 10:30am today when several bigger trades in Treasury futures made for an additional move into weaker territory for Treasuries and MBS.  They've both since recovered most of that weakness however, leaving the day-over-day changes in just moderately weaker territory--about an eighth of a point in Fannie 3.5s and just under 2bps higher in 10yr yields.

MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
98-11 : -0-04
FNMA 3.5
102-10 : -0-04
FNMA 4.0
105-18 : -0-03
Treasuries
2 YR
0.4639 : +0.0119
10 YR
2.5395 : +0.0195
30 YR
3.3548 : +0.0118
Pricing as of 7/14/14 11:51AMEST
Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
10:44AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Quick Move to New Lows; No Major Reprice Risk Yet
9:04AM  :  Bond Markets Slightly Weaker Overnight; Slow Session so Far
Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Sung Kim  :  "who cares about the lawsuits unless it results in someone blowing up"
Matthew Graham  :  "no, just the opposite. I feel nothing. Every time I see "big bank sued for x billion," I couldn't possible care any less."
Raul Lopez  :  "Lol! I suppose you feel quite strongly about that MG!"
Christopher Stevens  :  ""Government officials, frustrated by months of back-and-forth haggling, warned the bank that a lawsuit would be filed the next day. But hours before the deadline expired, the Justice Department put its plans on hold. News had leaked that afternoon, June 17, that the U.S. had captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah, a key suspect in the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2012. Justice Department officials didn't want the announcement of the suit against Citigroup—and its accompanying litany of alleged misdeeds related to mortgage-backed securities—to be overshadowed by questions about the Benghazi suspect and U.S. policy on detainees. Citigroup, which didn't want to raise its offer again and had been preparing to be sued, never again heard the threat of a suit. "
Matthew Graham  :  "big bank financial crisis lawsuits are the most boring, tedious, inconsequential, staged, contrived, and useless acts of political theater I can imagine. "
Raul Lopez  :  "Looks like his press conference was completely shrugged "
Raul Lopez  :  "Citigroup settlement, a big one"
Sung Kim  :  "just in case people are anxious for 30-July http://mndne.ws/1mO4hTj"