Range Breakout !

Yesterday's headline was "range breakout?" with a question mark.  We only need a change in punctuation to adapt the headline to today's reality.  Yields initiated a "test" of the range by moving above 3.60 yesterday.  Steady weakness overnight and more selling this morning mean that the breakout is being confirmed.  As for reasons, there aren't any big, individual headlines to blame.  It's not as if we had a super strong jobs report or an inflationary revelation in the data.  Markets are gearing up for the Fed to remain more restrictive due to a general absence of strong progress on inflation, and for Fed Chair Powell to hint at the restrictive stance in comments scheduled to start at 11am ET.

Here are two ways to looks at the range breakout and a third chart with even broader context (translation: not great in the short term, but still consolidating in the big picture).