MBS Live Recap: Big Bad Day; Yes, Trade Headlines Still Matter

It was a big, bad day for the bond market, although the size of the thing ended up getting pared down just a bit in the afternoon.  Chalk that up to a counterpoint headline that pushed back against the narrative created by the day's previous headlines.  

The narrative in question concerns the US/China trade pact.  Most recently, the notion of rolling back previously announced tariffs has taken center stage.  Overnight headlines set the tone with China's Commerce Minister saying the two countries had agreed to cancel tariffs in different phases.  Similar headlines from the White House added to the same momentum during the AM trading hours. 

Combine that with a bond market that was already on edge in terms of the technical landscape (you know... all that stuff I've been talking about with respect to 2019 being a really old, really big bond rally that was increasingly likely to face big-picture resistance) and momentum was compounded enough to get yields all the way up to 1.973 at their weakest levels.

After the biggest, nastiestest, most capitulatory spike of the day, bond buyers were already stepping in to stop the bleeding ahead of the 30yr bond auction.  This was one of the few genuine moments of solace.  From there, the auction was decent enough to avoid suggesting a quick return to the day's weakest levels.  Nonetheless, bonds were starting to drift in that direction until the counterpoint headline mentioned above.

EVEN AFTER the boost from that headline, bonds still closed the day well over the 1.90% ceiling that we've been hoping no to break for the past few months.  Some well-respected analysts and strategists think this move is overdone from a technical standpoint (they're even talking about catching falling knives after today), but I continue to view the burden of proof for a friendly bounce to be quite high.  It's going to take a bigger rally than we saw last week, and that's not really something that has a chance to materialize in a reliable way until after the coming 3-day weekend.