I hesitate to give the stock lever too much credit for this morning's gains, largely because stock losses coexisted with yields moving higher as recently as last week, but indeed, there isn't much else to credit for the most recent move. Moreover, it hasn't necessarily been a huge move when viewed in context.
Specifically, yields had already dropped 3bps on the day, and the most recent move brings them 4.3bps lower.
One thing's for sure though: this clearly HASN'T been solely attributable to the ISM Non-Manufacturing data. It was fairly close to consensus, but weak enough that it could have underpinned the "risk-off" move seen over the past 45 minutes.
- ISM N-MFG PMI 56.8m vs 58.1 forecast
- Business Activity 59.1 vs 60.0 forecast
- Prices 61.8 vs 61.5 previously
MBS are up nearly a quarter of a point on average. 10yr yields are currently trading under the 2.95% technical level at 2.93%. That was less of a given heading into the 9:30am NYSE hour. This is a fairly big, obvious technical level, so it's not much of a stretch to assume the past 45 minutes benefited from some snowball buying as 2.95% was defended as a ceiling (in other words, trading positions would be more stacked-up here as opposed to elsewhere. Neutral traders may have seen their cue at 2.94% or short traders may be covering.