MBS Live Recap: Fiercely Apathetic Day, Especially For Month-End

The last trading day of any given month is more volatile and more actively traded than the average trading day.  That wasn't the case today, which is somewhat of a surprise given that the previous trading session saw the highest yields in 5 months amid very high volume.  With that set-up, today was more likely to go big in either direction, at least from a strictly technical perspective (i.e. if we ignore all of the fundamental events in play).

But wouldn't you know it!  There are a ton of fundamental events in play, and by the time we consider them, we can probably forgive the bond market for being indecisive here!  These include things like the impending Fed Announcement on Wednesday, the election uncertainty created by last Friday's 'email investigation reopening,' and certainly, the looming central bank decisions in early December (where Europe will talk about tapering).  

More immediate in terms of fundamentals was today's substantial drop in oil prices.  It didn't end up being a major motivation for bond markets, but at the very least, we could say that sharp declines in oil prices don't make a solid argument for higher rates.  

Most of today's limited movement was seen during the European session, which was moderately positive for bond markets.  The mixed Incomes/Outlays data at 8:30am and the weaker Chicago PMI data at 9:45am didn't hurt.  US bond markets sold off just slightly after European bond markets closed, but managed to find their footing by 12:30pm.  Treasuries went on to benefit from month-end bond buying heading into the close, but MBS only managed to recover about half their intraday losses.  

Fannie 3.0s ended up 1 tick on the day while 10yr yields fell 2.4bps.