• Yellen rally set off positive technicals
  • "Technicals" refers to mathematical interpretation of market movement based only on the previous market movement (i.e. ignoring data and external events)
  • Today's data is a non-event, thus leaving focus on technicals
  • Watch 1.85 and 1.88 in 10yr yields for defensive ceilings.  They might be attacked, but if they hold, that's good.

Yesterday's Yellen-induced bond market rally did some nice things for most of the mainstream technical analysis (drawing conclusions and making predictions about market movement based solely on the market movement itself, as opposed to external events).  

There are too many different technical studies for most anyone to want to digest on a regular basis when watching one of their most important securities, but fortunately there are a few studies that are considered nearly ubiquitous, and they usually send the same messages.

This was the case with the popular Bollinger Bands (BBands for short) and stochastics until yesterday.  As you can see in the chart below, Treasury yields had been hanging out just above the middle BBand and at the same time had been avoiding a strong "cross" in stochastics (when the faster moving line breaks through the slower moving line, it's a signal that momentum may be shifting in that direction).

Yellen's rally set-off clear signals in both these techs, with a big break below the middle BBand and opening a noticeable gap in stochastics--both good things.

2016-3-30 technicals

With this morning's only relevant data--ADP Employment--coming in at 200k vs a 194k forecast (but offset by a 9k drop in the previous report), bond markets will be more focused on trading the technical boundaries suggested by yesterday's breakout.  On that larger time scale, you may be able to see 1.88%-ish as a defensive overhead ceiling (middle BBand), but we also had a nice intraday pivot at 1.85 yesterday.  As such, those would be the first two places I'd look for "defense" if we happen to continue losing ground.


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
102-10 : -0-03
Treasuries
10 YR
1.8350 : +0.0230
Pricing as of 3/30/16 8:22AMEST

Tomorrow's Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Forecast Prior
Wednesday, Mar 30
7:00 Mortgage Market Index w/e 465.2
8:15 ADP National Employment (k)* Mar 194 214
13:00 7-Yr Note Auction (bl)* 28