MBS RECAP: A Nice, Calm Rally Day

Before the Fed wrapped up QE purchases last year, the amount of movement we saw in the first few minutes of the day would have bordered on catastrophic.  This week, it's just another modest morning correction.  The really crazy thing is that this morning is nothing compared to the overnight session, and from there, the overnight session Treasuries is nothing compared to that of German Bunds.

And with that, we finally come to the star of the show.  German Bunds have been in the throes of an epic sell-off.  It's been far more abrupt than the mid-2013 taper tantrum sell-off in the US (read that again if you need to, because it's very telling when you think about how crazy mid-2013 was).  The past 5 sessions before today were the biggest culprit, but today's played an important role as you can see in the candlestick chart below. 

You don't even need to know about candlestick analysis (or anything, really) to see that today was different.  In candlestick terms, we might call that a shooting star or inverted hammer.  Either way, it's a reversal signal from a purely technical perspective.  Personally, I'm not getting too excited about it just yet, because many times what seem to be reversal signals are simply expressions of exhaustion.  NFP tomorrow morning stands the best chance to cast a vote on whether today was merely a pause or the beginning of a bounce.