MBS Live Day Ahead: New Month, New Trend?

While it's definitely not a hard and fast rule, we often see a clear bias toward strength or weakness during any given month in the bond market.  July was unequivocally stronger, lining up almost perfectly with the most recent down-trend in yields (teal lines in the chart).  August was decidedly weaker, with yields bottoming out on the 4th before embarking on the up-trend we're currently tracking (yellow lines).

After a bounce at a ceiling of .79% on Friday, bonds have rallied nicely over the past 2 trading days.  As of this morning, they're trading in a narrow range very close to the lower boundary of the prevailing uptrend.  Is this a sign that we're about to see another monthly shift in broad, underlying momentum?  More simply put, if July's trading could easily be placed in the teal lines and August's trading in the yellow lines, are we about to get another set of teal lines for September?

I'd classify this in the same way I'd look at almost any other potentially positive shift in bond market momentum.  It's a reasonable thing to hope for and consider, but not necessarily something to plan on.  Yes, it seems like we've seen a fairly strong show of support at the .79% ceiling, but seeing as how we're starting today just under .72%, we haven't put enough distance between ourselves and that ceiling to rest easy.  The task at hand remains.  We're following August's uptrend until it's definitively broken.  

The impact of economic data has been hit and miss during the pandemic--mostly miss.  In other words, there really hasn't been any connection to the data, save for short-term, shallow, temporary reactions to headlines.  This can always change, but that seems like a tall order when we're heading back to school and into the "indoors" season during a respiratory pandemic that has already proven itself a far more relevant market mover than econ data.  

Still, if there are a few reports that would be on the list of potential market movers, the ISM and Markit PMIs are among them.  Today brings ISM manufacturing at 10am, expected to come in at 54.5 vs 54.2 last month.