MBS RECAP: Bonds End Green After Noon Swoon

Time for another installment of "the headline is the recap."  Bond markets sold-off a bit at noon and came back to end just barely inside positive territory.  The end.

The mid-day weakness was mildly disconcerting if you've been paying close attention to technical levels.  Reason being, the selling in Treasuries brought the 10yr yield up over the important 2.04 inflection point.  Combined with the fact that today was the 3rd in a row with "higher lows," there is a bit more bearishness in the air than the closing levels suggest.  Most salient, however, is the relative lack of conviction in both stocks and bonds.

As far as accounting for the intraday drama (which, as you can see, isn't detectable in the bigger picture), it's easiest to point to the 10am NAHB Housing Market Index coming in at 10yr highs.  While this report doesn't typically elicit much of a response, today was somewhat of an exception in that there was a detectable response.  It wasn't anything significant though, and the selling trend was already underway 10 minutes before the data.  More importantly, the green on the screen at closing time means there was no follow through on the data.  Markets are waiting for something else.