MBS Live Recap: Tariff Deal Tanks Treasuries (and MBS)

Bonds began the day in modestly stronger territory and seemed content to hand onto those gains indefinitely.  Up until the last 90 minutes of trading, the only interesting development was a quick technical move int he yield curve around 10:45am ET.  Even then, there wasn't a meaningful reaction in 10yr yields (noticeable, but not meaningful), which remained uncomfortably close to their 2.95% pivot point.

Incidentally, I recorded today's MBS Huddle video only a few minutes before the afternoon's big news.  In it, I cautioned that even with the 2nd day of modest gains (at the time), that it was still too soon to rule out the new, negative momentum.  Additionally, the underlying thesis was that bonds looked like they were hunkering down to wait for whatever the next input would happen to be.

Moments later, the next input made itself known in the form of a trade agreement between EU's Juncker and Trump.  In short, they apparently avoided a US/EU trade war.  As you might expect, stocks liked the news and bonds didn't.  10yr yields moved quickly from 2.93+ to 2.97+, ultimately bringing MBS along for the ride.  Only a handful of lenders repriced, but the remaining lenders will have to adjust for the market weakness in tomorrow morning's rate sheets unless bonds rally in a big way overnight.