MBS Live Recap: Bonds Follow Trump Down Mt. St. Yellen

Mt. St. Helens was the most destructive volcano in US history.  Mt. St. Yellen has almost nothing to do with it apart from the fact that the bond market movement seen since last week's Yellen speech sort of resembles a mountain.  Yellen's speech hit markets at 3pm last Wednesday and quickly sent yields billowing into the atmosphere.

Things looked fairly bleak heading into Friday afternoon, but Trump has helped yields navigate down the other side of the mountain over the past 2 business days.  Both on Friday and today, Trump's interesting tone and lack of specificity combined to push stocks and bonds into a "risk-off" pattern (i.e. buy bonds, sell stocks).  The net effect is a 10yr Treasury yield right back at pre-Yellen levels.

To give credit where it's due, European trading played some role in this morning's improvements, though it doesn't look like it was a driving force.  Rather, bonds benefited from a general sense of repositioning and mild snowball buying.  In other words, traders betting on higher rates quickly got the urge to cover those bets, and because those bets are covered by buying, it added to the positive momentum already taking shape from the "risk-off" trading that began just after the NYSE Open.