MBS MID-DAY: Bond Markets Mostly Holding Gains After Weaker Payrolls Data

By: Matthew Graham

Treasuries and MBS dodged a bullet today in that a strong showing from the Employment Situation Report (aka "NFP" for the primary component: nonfarm payrolls) could have pushed them beyond important support levels.  Instead, the report was weak enough that we got a fairly healthy rally in response, and we're still in positive territory.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that MBS are only up 5 ticks on the day at 102-25, and bond markets in general, have been losing ground since 8:33am.  In other words, we popped sharply higher on the NFP news and have been leaking lower ever since. 

The other piece of the bad news is that Treasuries and German Bunds (which are as important a benchmark for global rate momentum as anything at the moment) both made "higher lows" this morning.  That is to say, they both rallied after the NFP release (i.e. "moved lower in yield"), but the rally stalled out before making it back to yesterday's best levels (leaving us with "higher low yields" compared to yesterday).  That speaks to some level of underlying, bigger-picture bond market weakness or, at the very least, hesitation.


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
99-07 : +0-07
FNMA 3.5
102-26 : +0-06
FNMA 4.0
105-32 : +0-05
Treasuries
2 YR
0.5040 : -0.0320
10 YR
2.4270 : -0.0210
30 YR
3.2030 : -0.0020
Pricing as of 9/5/14 12:17PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
8:42AM  :  NFP Much Weaker Than Expected; Big Rally for Bond Markets

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Victor Burek  :  "the pattern has been, yields rise to start month, then fall to lows by end of month, rinse repeat"
Victor Burek  :  "Bloomberg talking heads blaming miss on seasonal adjustments"
dustin mcalister  :  "if that is not a guy selling whatever you put in front of him i don't know what is"
Jeff Anderson  :  "Zandi saying the numbers are wrong."
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - U.S. AUG JOBLESS RATE 6.1 PCT (CONSENSUS 6.1 PCT) VS JULY 6.2 PCT (PREV 6.2 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. AUG NONFARM PAYROLLS +142,000, SMALLEST RISE SINCE DEC 2013 (CONSENSUS +225,000) VS JULY +212,000 (PREV +209,000), JUNE +267,000 (PREV +298,000)"