MBS Day Ahead: Big Picture Trumps Bond Market Brush Strokes

We can talk about minutia or we can talk about the big picture.  Minute details vary as far as their suggested impact on bond market momentum.  In fact, a case can almost always be made for vastly different outcomes depending on which minutia are in focus.  For example, we could focus on yesterday's stronger European data overnight as justification for European bond markets weakening or on weaker Durable Goods in the domestic session as justification for domestic bond markets improving.

There's just one small problem.  Both of those scenarios saw the opposite outcome!  European bond markets improved after their stronger data (normally, strong data causes bond market weakness).  Domestic bond markets sold-off after weaker Durable Goods data (normally, that would help).  What sort of cruel Bizarro World is this?  It begs the question of whether today's events (GDP, Treasury auction) matter.  It also forces us to wonder if they're having an organic effect or if markets just happen to be moving in the same direction with or without the data.

Maybe it's just time to accept the long term trend for what it is, and understand that trading levels can essentially do whatever the heck they want within that trend for multiple reasons having nothing to do with economic data.  Unfortunately, trading levels could rally to the point that 10yr yields are at 2.10, and the uptrend would still be intact.  In other words, it's going to be hard to trust any rally just yet.