MBS Live Day Ahead: Sideways Momentum The Risk as Stocks Threaten Breakout

I'll be one of the first to tell you that traditional concept of stock prices moving in the same direction in bond yields breaks down when viewing longer time frames.  But in the shorter term, we frequently see them paying attention to each other.  Examples of the interdependency are easiest to see when stocks are staging for a big breakout in one direction or the other.

For instance, when it looks like stocks might be set to fall, bond yields hesitate to rise, as bond traders know there might be a lot of money flooding out of stocks, looking for a home.  The inverse is true as well, and that's the scenario that may be more appropriate given that stocks currently look more like they're staging for a break higher.

This recent consolidation in stocks--especially the fact that they've been close to all time highs over the past few days--could easily explain why bonds have held in a sideways pattern after breaking the recent uptrend (teal lines in the chart below), as opposed to continuing to build momentum toward lower yields.

The big alternative thesis to all of the above is this: if bonds manage to rally despite stocks breaking higher, it will say quite a lot about underlying bond buying demand--or at least about supportive ceilings in the mid 2.3% 10yr yield range.

Today's data calendar is among the week's most potent, with Housing Starts and Industrial Production on tap.  Neither of these are epic market movers, but the economic calendar is so sparsely populated on the remaining days that these reports could get more attention than normal.