Bonds Brace For Impact From Data

Bonds sold off somewhat abruptly on Wednesday with little by way of overt justification.  While it's true that the Fed released the Minutes of its most recent meeting (3 weeks ago), there were no revelations and no new ways to think about the points that have been hammered home ad nauseum in recent weeks.  Perhaps more important is the fact that the sell-off was largely over by the time the Fed Minutes came out.  Were traders bracing for impact?  It's actually easier to imagine that sort of trepidation in advance of the next two days of economic data.  After all, we know the Fed wants to resume its rate hikes if the economy evolves as expected and Thu/Fri data can do quite a lot to let us know how the economy is evolving.