MBS MID-DAY: Near Unchanged Levels After ECB; Afternoon Not Without Risks

By: Matthew Graham

This morning's main event was the post-announcement press conference with ECB (European Central Bank) President Mario Draghi.  It made for some volatility in both directions which has now mostly cancelled itself out.  This is especially true for MBS, which are essentially unchanged on the day while Treasuries remain a bit weaker. 

Treasuries are taking a bit of an incremental hit from an active corporate bond market, which implies that big accounts have sold or will sell Treasuries as a part of the corporate bond issuance process.  Next week's "quarterly refunding" (a new batch of longer-dated Treasuries) also creates a bit of defensiveness as these auctions are seen as less predictable than the "reopening" auctions which occur on the other 8 months of the year.  As the name implies, reopenings are simply 2nd and 3rd chances to bid on the Treasury coupons created at the quarterly refunding auctions.

As for the rest of today, European equities markets are closed and EU bond markets are nearly closed.  Volatility has been minimal since the ECB press conference ended, but US bond markets seem willing to take cues from stocks to some extent.  That leaves the door open for pressure into the afternoon.  Holding under 2.38% in 10yr yields would be a solid, uneventful showing ahead of tomorrow's NFP.


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
99-25 : -0-03
FNMA 3.5
103-07 : -0-02
FNMA 4.0
106-04 : -0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.5380 : +0.0120
10 YR
2.3710 : +0.0250
30 YR
3.0910 : +0.0290
Pricing as of 11/6/14 12:20PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
10:29AM  :  Here's Why Bond Markets Turned on a Dime during ECB Press Conference.

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Victor Burek  :  "recent trend has been all weakness brought in buyers and 10 yr closed around 2.34"
David Rudnick  :  "you guys think this slow bleed out will reverse or keep going?"
Matthew Graham  :  "Draghi says the dinner went better than expected, and the reporter says 'yeah, ummm, I was talking about the conversations after the dinner,' implying that he just skirted the question. He didn't have a response to that. "
Matthew Graham  :  "confronting the reporter that wrote the article on Tuesday"
Matthew Graham  :  "markets thought so"
Sung Kim  :  "great answer"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- DRAGHI, ASKED ABOUT DISCORD ON GOVERNING COUNCIL, SAYS IT IS NORMAL TO DISAGREE"
Victor Burek  :  "so same ole same ole, they stand ready to act..they really really promise"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - DRAGHI - SEE INFLATION AT LOW LEVELS IN COMING MTHS BEFORE INCREASING GRADUALLY IN 2015, 2016"
Matthew Graham  :  "Which is the opposite of the news that came out on Tuesday"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - DRAGHI - GOVERNING COUNCIL UNANIMOUS IN ITS COMMITMENT TO USING ADDITIONAL UNCONVENTIONAL MEASURES, IF NEEDED"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. Q3 NON-FARM PRODUCTIVITY +2.0 PCT (CONSENSUS +1.5 PCT) VS Q2 +2.9 PCT (PREV +2.3 PCT) LABOR COSTS +0.3 PCT (CONSENSUS +0.5 PCT) VS Q2 -0.5 PCT (PREV -0.1 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- US JOBLESS CLAIMS FELL TO 278,000 NOV 1 WEEK (CONSENSUS 285,000) FROM 288,000 PRIOR WEEK (PREVIOUS 287,000)"
Matthew Graham  :  "tends to be the press conference that's the biggest potential market mover when it come to ECB, unlike the Fed where it can be the announcement itself or even the economic projections."
Victor Burek  :  "At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.05%, 0.30% and -0.20% respectively. The President of the ECB will comment on the considerations underlying these decisions at a press conference starting at 2.30 p.m. CET today. "
David Rudnick  :  "abutting interesting good or bad in the announcement? "
Victor Burek  :  "ecb leaves rates unchanged"