MBS RECAP: Modest Gains After Weaker Data; Waiting on Greece, Yellen

There's nothing new to report from the MBS Mid-Day as bond markets continued to trade well within the morning's range through the close.  The best levels were set right after the weaker-than-expected Retail Sales data.  'Domestic data moving markets?!' you ask?  Yes.  It happened.  Crazy, I know. 

It's not that Retail Sales shouldn't have moved markets.  It's just that nothing else really made a dent today.  In a broader sense, both German and US 10yr yields are still consolidating their big sell-off from Friday, when optimism picked up regarding Greece.  We're still right in line with the new-found weakness seen on Friday, for what it's worth.  In fact, at 2.40, we're not even close to Friday's better levels (2.34-ish) and even farther from Thursday's range (2.18-2.32).

But, of course making it back to those levels is just a hop and a skip in terms of 2015's volatile reality.  So is an equal and opposite move.  The direction and the magnitude stand the best chance to be determined by some combination of Greece and Yellen tomorrow.  The former has a deadline to ratify the weekend's bailout negotiations and the latter will be delivering her semi-annual congressional testimony.  In terms of Fed events that matter, these so-called Humphrey Hawkins speeches can be right up there with actual Fed policy announcements and Minutes, depending on what's said.