Why Were 10yr Yields Only a Few bps Lower Today?

Why Were 10yr Yields Only a Few bps Lower Today?

If you missed this morning's commentary, the gist is that inflation for June (via the CPI report) came in much lower than forecast (biggest "miss" in over a year). Given the market's preoccupation with inflation, this logically resulted in an immediate bond rally. 10yr yields only ended up a few bps lower by the end of the day. There are 3 key reasons. The first is purely mechanical and it has to do with the shorter-term rates benefitting the most. Fed Funds Futures did the best with the end-of-year implied rate falling an eighth of a point (or one half of a rate hike erased). It's common to see longer term bonds lag these moves with direct Fed rate implications. That said, we would have expected short term rates to do better as well were it not for the fact that fuel prices bottomed in June (when this data was collected) and have since been moving back up fairly quickly. The 3rd reason is related but more timely: fuel prices fell with bond yields into the 11am hour, but erased those gains after that.