Have You Heard The One About "Sideways and Data Dependent?"

With apologies to those who follow closely enough to know how frequently this notion has been recycled recently, bonds continue grinding sideways as investors continue waiting on a small handful of key economic reports to suggest the next major departure from the trend.  As repetitive as it may be, this thesis easily applies to every trading day since the February 13th CPI release.  Today's early trading is just another reminder that the average economic report is not a big enough deal to get much of a trading reaction. 

Specifically, Durable Goods came in at -6.1 vs -4.5 forecasts with a -0.3 downward revision to last month.  The core number was right on target, but also revised down sharply for last month.  Despite the seemingly good news for bonds, there was no real reaction (if anything, it was a negative reaction).  Traders could once again be apprehensive about today's Treasury auction.  On a positive note, it's the last auction of the week.

On another positive note (or at least a note that is not negative), yields have exited the recent uptrend (yellow line in the chart below) and are well within the sideways range between 4.19 and 4.32.

Counterpoint: there are other ways to draw trendlines.