There was a lot of build-up for last night's Trump speech.  I won't tell you that it didn't turn out to be a market mover, but it wasn't nearly as potent as the anticipation would have suggested.  Instead, the losses seen since yesterday afternoon are almost exclusively attributable to a few other factors.

The most important factor is Fed rate hike expectations.  This is easy to see in today's chart.  It's also easy to see how Treasuries broke away from their previously strong correlation with hike expectations (aka "Fed Funds Futures") in the second half of February.  Even now, longer-term rates continue to resist Fed rate hike implications, but pain felt in 2yr yields is radiating up the curve and causing visible pain for 5's and 10's.

2017-3-1 Open

Yesterday's biggest market mover was a series of comments from NY Fed Pres Dudley.  He gave pretty direct hints at a March rate hike and his voice matters more than any of the other Fed speakers we've heard from this week (the biggest spike in the chart above lines up with Dudley, not Trump).

In 2 days, we'll hear from the remaining 2 members of the Fed's "big 3": Yellen and Fischer.  All of this is building toward markets potentially getting the Fed's maximum level of advance commitment for a rate hike.  In other words, if Yellen and Fischer strike a similar tone, the Fed would be telegraphing a rate hike as strongly as they ever have.

Trump's speech doesn't really change this dynamic.  The speech didn't help bonds overnight, but it was only worth a few extra bps of weakness, at most.  If anything, bonds are doing a surprisingly good job of resisting the "risk-on" message conveyed by stocks.  Longer-term yields, particularly, are trying to hold their ground.

If anything has the ability to derail the burgeoning Fed hike intentions (or cement them), it's the next few days of data.  We'll get a critical report this morning in the form of Personal Consumption Expenditures (the year-over-year "Core PCE" component of that report is the Fed's preferred long-term inflation gauge).  This one report won't be THE deciding factor for a March rate hike, but if the Fed's on a fence, it could nudge the odds in one direction or the other.  ISM Manufacturing is important as well.