MBS Live Day Ahead: Recent Selling Spree is Actually One Of The Best Set-Ups For a Bond Rally

This is a bit of a paradoxical outlook. In short, things have been consistently downbeat enough for the bond market that we're due to see a friendly day or three in the near term future. Why is that? It has to do with the number of consecutive days that yields have moved higher. In the current case, it's 6 in a row (unless we get a big, friendly reversal today).

5-day streaks happen fairly often. 6 day streaks are less common. And probability drops off a cliff from there. After these streaks run their course, the result is at least a few days of sideways-to-lower yields. Somethings the bounce is underwhelming, but other times it provides a material improvement.

Will it happen tomorrow though? That could be a tough sell with next week's Treasury auctions looming. It could also depend on the outcome of the jobs report.

The bottom line is that the recent selling spree is probably the best possible set-up in terms of offering hope for bond market support. The major caveat is that "support" is under no obligation to last more than a few days based on this technical pattern.  Also, I'd feel a lot more optimistic about the next 4 days if traders weren't feeling anxious about getting through a big round of Treasury auctions in the middle of next week.

Whatever happens, the next 6 trading days will provide a ton of information about whether the prevailing trend (the big, long-term drift toward higher yields) will... prevail, or whether we'll see yields settle into more of a wide, sideways range of indecision as they wait to discover the longer-term impacts of covid on the global economy.