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MBS RECAP: Bonds Slump, But Trading Was Pretty Light

Posted To: MBS Commentary

There's age old market wisdom that loosely suggests any given move should be taken more seriously if there's a lot of volume behind it. Deductively, we might conclude that moves backed by exceptionally light volume could be taken less seriously. To whatever extent it makes sense to do such things (and it rarely makes sense to brush off market weakness), today would be one of the best candidates. Much of the rest of the world was closed for business in the overnight session, with the only heavy lifting being done by Tokyo (i.e. Japanese traders were primarily responsible for making trades that moved bond markets during those hours). That made for almost non-existent volume in the overnight session, and only a modest amount of weakness. The domestic hours saw additional weakness , however...(read more)