Today brought one of the week's only potentially important economic reports in the form of the Philly Fed Index, but it fell on deaf ears.  Notably, the headline and the internal components were at odds.  At first glance, that might help us justify the lack of movement at 8:30am ET, but a closer look reveals that volume was completely dead at the time.  The takeaway is that traders probably weren't going to care either way.

And that notion of 'not caring either way'--at least when it comes to economic data--is something I'm starting to hear more and more around analytical campfires.  The argument is that an eventual trade deal (whatever it ultimately ends up looking like) will likely change the landscape of economic data.  Not only do we not know when that will happen exactly, but we also don't really know what the deal will look like or how long it will take to filter through to economic data.  The fact that we're still negotiating "phase 1" (and fairly contentiously I might add) is a stark reminder of just how far we may be from fully realizing the implications for rates.

In general though, any trade deal is assumed to leave the global economy in a better state than the trading levels of early October (or early September) suggested.  As such, it's no surprise to be steadily backing up from those low yields.  The absence of firm agreements (or clarity on when we might see them) makes it nor surprise that yields aren't stampeding above 2%.