April was a bummer of a month for the bond market.  Actually, it was decent through the 11th, but it got ugly quickly after that--especially during the past 2 weeks.  Contrast that to March, which was decidedly, albeit mildly positive.  If bonds stick to this same pattern of clearly delineated monthly trading themes, the rest of the week could be interesting.  Today, however, was sort of a dud.

One barrier to excitement will be the "Golden Week" holidays in Japan, keeping the biggest Treasury trading contingent out of the office during Asian market hours.  Actually, it's more fair to say that Golden Week is a barrier to volume early in any given trading session.  We can still see exciting moves occur in lower volume.  

The 8:30am PCE data was fairly uneventful with the Core year-over-year reading coming in at +1.9 vs a +1.9 forecast.  Traders who'd been waiting to make sure there wasn't a more onerous inflation implication were thus able to join in the modest buying that seemed to underpin most of the session.  That constant, modest support is most easily viewed as a product of "month-end buying."  Given that today was the last day for month-end trading, that makes tomorrow important in terms of assessing any new underlying trends for May's bond trading.