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Beware The Bounce--Temporary Though it May Be

As the NYSE session gets underway, risk assets (Yen, Stocks, etc.) are bouncing higher at the expense of safe-haven assets like bonds.  This is a classic "risk-on" move.

2017-4-19 update2

Although this is going out as an "alert," reprice risk is almost nil at the moment, simply because MBS opened quite a bit weaker and even in the worst-timed cases, lenders aren't yet seeing a full eighth of a point of weakness from morning rate sheet print times.  That leaves us with maybe one or two lenders that have ever pulled the trigger on a negative reprice (simply due to a negative trend in broader bond markets--i.e. they figure it might continue and want to get ahead of the move).

If it continues, we still need to keep the bigger picture in mind.  There's A LOT going on at current levels.  The 2.15-2.17 range where we bounced yesterday is arguably the most important post-election rally target, simply because it was "the gap" on the way up.   

Gaps like this tend to offer resistance when yields (or whatever you're charting) first return.  In that sense, today's bounce higher in yield is easy to reconcile.  From here, we're watching several overhead resistance levels (aka "ceilings") in the hopes of finding support.  The lower and firmer the support, the more optimistic we can be about moving back through the gap.  In this context, "firm" would refer to a sharper, higher-volume move lower in yield immediately after hitting one of the white lines in the following chart.  

2017-4-19 update3

The lower pane of the chart shows another approach where we can use the recent trend channels to watch for supportive levels that move lower every day.  As you can see, we're still near the lower end of the more aggressive trend (red lines), and still completely below the more conservative trend (teal lines).  In other words, we could endure a fair amount of weakness before recent, positive trends were in jeopardy.

MBS / Treasury Market Data

UMBS 5.5
97.50
+0.42
UMBS 6.0
99.46
+0.40
UMBS 6.5
101.08
+0.34
2 YR
4.9518
-0.0084
10 YR
4.6181
-0.0164
Pricing as of: 5/2 12:10AM EST
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