If we simply consider the close-of-the-day trading levels in bond markets, today was "unchanged."  The intraday activity tells only a slightly more detailed story.  Treasuries were weaker in the overnight session and never showed much of a desire to overcome that plight until the 9:30am NYSE open.  This is highly suggestive/supportive of "month-end tradeflows" driving much of the momentum.

Today even provided another interesting way to confirm the "month-end" theory.  At 9:45am, Chicago PMI came out much weaker than expected.  You would have been within your rights to chalk up some bond market gains to the data.  Then, about 2 hours later, the headline was corrected such that the Chicago PMI was much STRONGER than expected.  If bonds were interested in the data, we would have seen a big bounce back toward higher yields. 

There was no such bounce.  After what could only be described as a token move toward higher yields, Treasuries firmly bounced just before drifting into negative territory on the day.  It was as if bond markets were saying "we've decided we'll be at least unchanged or better today."

What does that mean about tomorrow?  Certainly, the economic data is on a higher tier (ADP and ISM), and then Friday's data is another tier higher still (NFP).  Moreover, month-end bond buying dynamics won't be a factor, so we may indeed get to see more causality between the events and market movement.