First of all, there is no true "non-Fed-related" way to look at yesterday's rally.  For US markets, it had almost everything to do with the Fed.  But the question is: was there a new motivation to rally or were markets simply waiting to rule out new motivation to sell-off before going where they would have gone already if not for FOMC anxiety?

That was a long, run-on sentence, so let's lay these options out.  Here are two ways we can understand the rally:

1. The Fed was more dovish than expected, and bonds rallied because of it.

2. The Fed didn't end up confirming fears about an accelerated rate hike timeline.  They didn't even have nice things to say about employment despite the past two bullish NFP reports.  US bond markets were noticeably avoiding joining the European rally in March, and with the Fed out of the way, they're free to do a bit more of that.

Surely, if there's some credence to this, the charts would show it, and they do.  In fact, Europe STILL managed to rally more than US Treasuries, even on Fed day!

2015-3-18 bunds

Remember all the references to the long term downtrend of 2014 being intact until challenged?  And then remember the shift in February where it became an "uptrend until broken."  Guess what yesterday did?

2015-3-18 uptrend breakout

While it's great to finally break that uptrend, you might also notice that we're at the bottom of the downtrend--at least when it comes to this method of drawing the trendlines (simple linear regression back to Jan 1 2014).  The point is that even if we don't see bond markets capitalize on the post-FOMC rally today, that would still fit in the context of the longer term downtrend.  Yesterday was important.  Times are changing.  Or rather, times have changed, and the broader swath of market participants is finally beginning to realize the perma-bears have a point.

On a final note, there's not much on tap for today in terms of data that's actually interesting.  Jobless Claims is a "survey week" this week (meaning it covers the week that coincides with the NFP survey), but the Fed's stance on employment yesterday suggests payroll creation can't stand alone.  So claims becomes less interesting than it otherwise might have been.  The only other meaty data is the Philly Fed index at 10am. 


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
102-06 : +0-00
FNMA 3.5
104-31 : +0-00
FNMA 4.0
106-26 : +0-00
Treasuries
2 YR
0.5850 : +0.0280
10 YR
1.9480 : +0.0300
30 YR
2.5270 : +0.0180
Pricing as of 3/19/15 7:30AMEST

Tomorrow's Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Forecast Prior
Thursday, Mar 19
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims (k)* w/e 292 289
8:30 Continued jobless claims (ml)* w/e 2.410 2.418
10:00 Philly Fed Business Index * Mar 7.1 5.2
13:00 10-yr TIPS Auction (bl)*