Before yesterday morning's Italian election results rocked markets, we noted that the week promised to be "significantly more active in terms of data and events."  With only one day down, it's safe to say "promise kept."  This was thanks exclusively to Italy and the various surprises surrounding the country's elections.  Things may continue to be up in the air in that regard as the leadership or lack thereof is sorted out in the coming days (more thorough coverage on all this "stuff" HERE).

Whatever the Italian election considerations may be, they'll be joined by a slew of second tier US economic data as well as the first of two days of Bernanke's Congressional testimony.  The Fed Chairman speaks at 10am before the Senate Banking Committee, leaving time for the morning to be dictated by Italy and pre-Bernanke speculation.  Case Shiller and FHFA Homes Prices are both out at 9am and Consumer Confidence hits at 10am.  The 5yr Treasury auction provides a potential afternoon highlight at 1pm.

Here's an updated version of the 10yr Treasury Futures chart we'd spent some time with throughout February--now having definitively confirmed a break over the 21-day moving average.  The moral of this story is twofold.  First, the chart was "well-behaved" from a technical standpoint in that we'd been expecting a relatively bigger break to follow the increasingly narrow containment.  Second, there's still lots of room within the broader trend for a move higher (since this chart is in PRICE, that would be LOWER in rate) without breaking out of a longer term downtrend (rising rates in general).  That said, it's fair to mention that there's now even more room to move lower in price, but who wants to think about such things?!