MBS Live Day Ahead: Bonds Look to Defend The Line Amid Data and More Fed-Speak

Fed Chair Yellen takes the hot-seat at Congress for a 2nd day today, but this time in front of the always-cheerful and relentlessly intelligent folks at the House Financial Services Committee.  Not that yesterday's Senate testimony was some paragon of thoughtful dialogue between professionals, but compared to what we typically see at the House, it may as well have been.  

In other words, today's testimony is not the same animal.  The tough questions have already been asked and answered.  Yellen's prepared statement (the thing that moved markets in the first place) is already out and will remain unchanged.  Today is about drama, political posturing, and inane tirades that make one wonder if we're all on Candid Camera: American Democracy Edition.  

The bottom line is that Yellen's testimony is not nearly the potential market mover it was yesterday.  Other events will attempt to pick up the slack though.  8:30am brings Consumer Prices (CPI)and Retail Sales--both have tons of street cred (and every big-ticket inflation metric is interesting to bond markets in the current environment).  The rest of the econ data is B-list with NY Fed Manufacturing, Business Inventories, and the NAHB Housing Market Index.  

The afternoon is dotted by additional Fed speakers, but not any from whom we'd expect to hear anything new (Rosengren recently flopped to the hawkish team and Harker is on the bandwagon for talking about ending MBS reinvestments--i.e. neither of these guys could hurt us any more than they recently have).

All the while, bonds will be attempting to defend the ceiling of their consolidation range.  We're watching the white line (around 2.484) for a supportive bounce, and concerned about follow-through to 2.53 if it breaks.