MBS Day Ahead: Rate Rally Keeps Knocking, but is Anyone Home?

It's a very interesting time for interest rates in the US.  Once again, what had been broad consensus on the long-term direction of rates is turning out to look  like something less than a sure thing.  But unlike 2014, there's no great reason (like European QE) to dismiss the risks that the consensus is correct just yet.  We're getting close though.

Rates reached the top of 2015's uptrend for the second time in June, and have since battled back all the way to the other side of the trend.  They're now colliding not only with the lower bound of the uptrend, but also with a few moving averages (most notably, the 200-day) and the important 2.14 inflection point.  Support is only 4 small bps away, meaning a break above 2.20 would threaten the more recent downtrend in rates (intact since July 14th)

It's been good to see the push back that we've seen so far, but until and unless we see more commitment to continuing the positive trend, we need to defend against the possibility that it's not going to happen.  At least not right now. 

Today's only data is July Housing Starts/Building Permits, expected at 1.19 and 1.232 million respectively.  Tomorrow brings the FOMC Minutes, which stand a good chance to answer the question about anyone being home.