MBS MID-DAY: Europe Turns Our Green to Red Ahead of Auction

By: Matthew Graham

The headline is the extend of the story this morning.  We began the day in positive territory, but have been pulled into negative territory by European bond market weakness.  If you're busy, you won't be missing too much if you stop reading now. 

The overnight session was broadly positive, and mostly to do with Europe.  This brought MBS and Treasuries into the domestic session at slightly stronger levels.  A weak batch of economic data at 8:30am helped the gains extend ever-so-briefly, but those gains were quickly seized upon as an opportunity to sell--both into the European close and the domestic afternoon (Treasury auction).

While the original motivation of that move higher in yield may have been domestic, it was Europe that took the ball and ran with it (straight up in yield).  German Bunds quickly broke well into negative territory while US bond markets followed reluctantly. 

Some of the big corporate debt issuance that had been on hold yesterday is now coming to market alongside today's 10yr Treasury auction.  That makes for a supply-rich environment for bond traders--not the greatest thing for prices.  Most lenders have repriced for the worse or will be soon.


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
100-11 : -0-06
FNMA 3.5
103-25 : -0-03
FNMA 4.0
106-14 : -0-01
Treasuries
2 YR
0.5800 : -0.0160
10 YR
2.2780 : +0.0310
30 YR
3.0610 : +0.0510
Pricing as of 5/13/15 12:45PMEST

Morning Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
11:32AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Negative Reprice Risk Increasing
10:37AM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Unfortunately, There is Already a Modest Amount of Reprice Risk
9:43AM  :  Trying to Defend Gains After Weaker Retail Sales Data

Live Chat Featured Comments
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Matthew Graham  :  "using data for cover"
Matthew Graham  :  "or if unfriendly data is with the grain of a sell-off, yes."
Bill Hills  :  "so its all about timing of the news in relation to the momentum? If the bond friendly data is with the grain, it will appear to matter greatly... and vice versa?"
Matthew Graham  :  "it will appear to matter greatly any time it's in line with tradeflow momentum "
Bill Hills  :  "when will domestic data matter again?"
John Tassios  :  "it's a new world now in bond land. there is so much money in bond funds, portfolio acct's with bonds in them, large institutional bond co's such as PIMCO or DoubleLine, etc, that if a sell order comes or even a buy order, it snowballs into huge moves and volatility due to lack of 3rd party conduits and lack of liquidity. In past years, firms such as Lehman, Bears Sterns, etc provided this."
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. APRIL EXPORT PRICES -0.7 PCT (CONSENSUS +0.1 PCT) VS MARCH +0.1 PCT (PREV +0.1 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- U.S. APRIL IMPORT PRICES -0.3 PCT (CONSENSUS +0.3 PCT) VS MARCH -0.2 PCT (PREV -0.3 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- US APRIL RETAIL SALES EX-AUTOS/GAS/BUILDING MATERIALS/FOOD SERVICES UNCHANGED (CONS +0.5 PCT) VS MARCH +0.5 PCT (PREV +0.3 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS- US APRIL RETAIL SALES EX-AUTOS +0.1 PCT (CONS +0.5 PCT) VS MARCH +0.7 PCT (PREV +0.4 PCT)"
Matthew Graham  :  "RTRS - US APRIL RETAIL SALES UNCHANGED (CONSENSUS +0.2 PCT) VS MARCH +1.1 PCT (PREV +0.9 PCT)"