MBS RECAP: Bond Markets Hold Ground Despite Headwinds

Little has changed from the mid-day summary.  In it, we discussed the fact that today's economic data and corporate bond issuance constituted headwinds for Treasuries and MBS.  At the time, bonds were holding their ground rather well despite those headwinds, and that generally continued to be the case into the afternoon.  While the "ebbing gains" noted in the mid-day continued to ebb, the pace was so slight that we stayed in positive territory through the close.

To reiterate the previous conclusion, that's a promising development considering the headwinds.  Not only did we stay green in spite of stronger Home Sales data, but we also weathered another big day of corporate debt issuance.  As a reminder, corporate issuance just means more bonds hitting the bond market.  They're not necessarily apples to apples with Treasuries and MBS, but some investors are certainly lured away, thus hurting MBS prices a bit.  As a more arcane reminder, Treasuries can be involved in the hedging process for corporate bonds, which means they're sold earlier in the process although they are often bought back later in the process. 

Using 10yr yields as a benchmark, we had a nice technical bounce at 2.342 as a ceiling today.  That had been the floor for the past 5 sessions.  Now we watch and hope it holds as a ceiling again tomorrow.  Breaking below today's lows of 2.302 would be an even stronger showing.