MBS Live Recap: Uninspired Day Belies Next Week's Risks

I'll save a majority of risk-mongering for next week's opener, but some of it is warranted for today.  The timing of calendar events has resulted in  natural opportunity for a "lull" in the action.  This lull was dependent on this morning's Consumer Price data coming in fairly close to consensus, which it did.  Had it been much stronger or weaker than expected, we would be able to more easily assess traders' fears and attitudes regarding the recent uptrend in rates.

In other words, has this week indeed been the confirmation of a break outside the consolidative range of July and August?  Or has it merely been a temporary raising of defenses against that possibility, with bonds more willing to adapt to the variables that will be cleared up by next week's events?

One thing's for sure: there are very few historical examples of rates remaining flat after the sort of move we saw this week.  It's likely that we'll have a good idea of the direction of the probable move after we hear from the Fed and Bank of Japan next week.  The important point is that past 2 days of flat trading should be viewed merely as a pause as opposed to a meaningful push back.  If we didn't have two more central bank announcements next week, we'd likely be seeing more conviction in this week's trading.