MBS RECAP: Bond Markets Battle Back After Europe Closes

It's getting to be quite a miraculous thing--the extent to which market participants have been attempting to manipulate every little Greek headline.  More miraculous still, is the market's willingness to react to Greece-related headlines, even if only slightly.

Today was such a day.  After leveling off into the European closing hours, bond markets were hit by a headline about a Greek debt deal.  It caused a quick pop higher in yields before traders realized it was nothing more than just another lemming stampede that began with an otherwise uninteresting article.  Most hilarious was the fact that the article was written in German for a German newspaper, but all it takes is one twitter user to google-translate and retype in all-caps. 

GREEK AID TO BE EXTENDED TO YEAR-END -GERMAN PAPER

What does that even mean?  No one knew, but they assumed it meant something good for Greece and bad for the rest of the bond market.  That's evident in the chart below, as is the fact that the European session generally pushed yields higher and US traders got back to business after Europe closed.