Bonds sold off again today amid a total absence of economic data and meaningful headlines.  Tradeflows were left in control and the biggest consideration continues to be the corporate bond market.  After another massive deal came through today, 2015 has now overtaken 2014's pace as the biggest on record for corporate bond issuance. 

Beyond the housekeeping-type trades associated with the corporate issuance process, we can also see plenty of defensiveness leading up to the next 3 days.  These contain big-ticket events including ADP and ISM Services tomorrow, ECB on Thursday, and a very important NFP on Friday (because it has the chance to confirm or moderate the bullish tone of the previous report).

The day began with bonds trading mostly sideways, just outside yesterday's weakest levels.  It was decent enough until the afternoon hours when corporate bond-related tradeflows ($8 bln Exxon deal) started assaulting the screens.  There was, once again, the unhappy combo of investors selling to make room to buy Exxon's offering, and the firms handling Exxon's offering selling to hedge the rate exposure on the deal.  Long story short, the afternoon saw MBS and Treasuries leak to the weakest levels of the day with plenty of negative reprices along the way.


MBS Pricing Snapshot
Pricing shown below is delayed, please note the timestamp at the bottom. Real time pricing is available via MBS Live.
MBS
FNMA 3.0
101-10 : -0-08
FNMA 3.5
104-11 : -0-06
FNMA 4.0
106-18 : -0-06
Treasuries
2 YR
0.6780 : +0.0160
10 YR
2.1260 : +0.0370
30 YR
2.7210 : +0.0350
Pricing as of 3/3/15 4:25PMEST

Today's Reprice Alerts and Updates
A recap of Alerts and Updates provided to MBS Live subscribers.
2:30PM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Slightly More Negative Reprice Risk Now
2:08PM  :  ALERT ISSUED: Modest Negative Reprice Risk for Some Lenders

MBS Live Chat Highlights
A recap of featured comments from the Live Discussion on the MBS Live Dashboard.
Michael Ullmann  :  " cash out, Unless its jumbo with no draw in last 12 months"
Jason Harris  :  "Jason....I won one on a scenario in which a purchase money first was refied into an 80-10 and then refi again...proved no draws and showed that they actually brought money to 80-10 closing....was a mess but it happened"
Jason York  :  "on a conventional refi, if paying off a non-purchase HELOC, always considered a cashout, correct? doesn't matter if there are no draws or anything, right?"
Victor Burek  :  "claims slightly higher"
Victor Burek  :  "pretty sure the employment component of ism data was weaker"
Bryce Schetselaar  :  "We could sure use a face-plant NFP this week"