MBS MID-DAY: September Retreat Continues for Bond Markets

Negative momentum has been pervasive in September so far.  Even the brief rally after Friday's jobs report failed to get yields back down to Thursday's lows.  Normally, we'd expect that the ECB announcement from that same day was the turning point in the recent rally, but US Treasuries are currently leading European Benchmarks higher.  That would be the other way around if the ECB was the key event.

So we're left to sort through a laundry list of potentially inconsequential factors in order to assess the severity of the ongoing weakness.  Today is turning out to be just another brick in the wall of losses.  But at least it's a moderately-sized brick.  MBS are down just over an eighth of a point and 10yr yields are up 2.7bps to 2.498. 

None of the morning's data or events can be clearly connected to any of the market movement.  Impending Treasury auctions are one consideration, but so is the sort of generalized selling pressure we see when a rally has run its course.  Unfortunately, unless 10yr yields were to break over 2.55, this weaker trend could simply be a correction inside the longer-term trend of 2014.