MBS Week Ahead: Fewer Scheduled Events for Bond Markets, but Plenty at Stake

Compared to last week, we have fewer potential market movers on the calendar in the week ahead.  But that doesn't make it any less important.  If anything, it has the potential to be much more important than last week, because yields have yet to definitively break above the important inflection point at 2.46.

Is it the end of the world if 10yr yields move above the yellow line in the chart above?  Not exactly, but it would be the first time that yields were moving higher through that line since mid 2013! 

There are a few sources of comfort for MBS and bond markets in general.  First of all, there's the fact that the pervasive motivation for US bond market strength doesn't look like it's changing its tune just yet.  We're talking about European bond markets, with the 10yr German Bund being the benchmark.  See it below in red vs Treasuries in Yellow.

On an MBS-specific note, mortgages have simply been outperforming Treasuries, or at least not underperforming since early August.

This week's events don't really get started until Wednesday's 1pm 10yr Treasury auction.  From there, the rest of the week stays somewhat busy, but Retail Sales at 8:30am on Friday is the only top tier economic data.