MBS Day Ahead: Yellen's Congressional Testimony and Relevant Economic Data

In stark contrast to Monday's empty calendar, Tuesday brings both important economic data and Yellen's first round of congressional testimony.  Of the three economic reports out at 8:30, June Retail Sales is the biggest potential market mover.  It's expected to come in at 0.6 compared to 0.3 in May. 

The runner-up in terms of market-moving data is Business Inventories at 10am.  This report isn't necessarily important because of it's statement about the economy.   Rather, business inventories are a component of GDP.  So most of the report's relevance is due to its impact on a bigger market-mover.

The day's biggest potential market-mover comes in the form of Fed policy information.  Janet Yellen provides her semi-annual congressional testimony before the Senate Banking Committee at 10am.  Depending on the questions she receives (and of course, how she answers them), markets may have to quickly adjust their expectations for various pieces of Fed policy (rate-hike timing, reinvestment timing, allowable inflation overrun, as well as more conceptual topics like the risk of easing too much or not enough).

At stake is the confirmation of a technical bounce that  is underway in bond markets.  "Technical Bounce" in this case, means that some momentum indicators look to be pointing toward higher rates.  In the chart below, the top section contains Bollinger Bands, and the lower section, a stochastic oscillator.  In an attempt to keep the assessment tangible, the basic concepts of each technical study appear in the chart itself. 

The bottom line is that if the combination of data and Yellen is unfriendly to bonds, it would 'confirm' the recent bounce.  That basically means we're not likely to snap back to recent lows--destined instead to go sideways or higher.