MBS Live Recap: Typically Boring Consolidation Ahead of The Fed

There were quite a few economic reports on tap today, and that made for some entertaining market watching!  Reason being, every time a report came out, bonds were in the middle of one of their periodic sideways plateaus that followed what little market movement we actually witnessed.  That actual market movement was almost entirely a byproduct of traders cleaning up their positions for the end of the week.

The preceding paragraph is the sort of thing I might have read 15 years ago and incredulously wondered "sure buddy, but how do you know such things and why would I take your word for it?!" 

Don't take my word for it.  Just look at this chart of 10yr yields and the yield curve.  It doesn't really matter which line is which (yellow line is 10s) because we're focused on the purple-ish volume (10yr Treasuries futures) at the bottom.  Then simply consider that there is absolutely nothing else going on in the market at 8:20am besides the opening bell of CME pit trading (the unofficial bond market open due to Treasuries options).  Or consider the other volume spike after 10am--another time of day when nothing else was going on besides Treasuries traders simply DECIDING to hold the line at the 2.86% technical level that we laid out as a ceiling quite some time ago.

Bottom line: this is a consolidation ahead of the Fed.  Granted, there can also be a lead-off in one direction or the other, but any major movement will depend on what the Fed actually has to say next Wednesday (unexpected tape-bombs notwithstanding).