“Bond Bears Have Had Their Fun”: Why One Trader Expects A Sharp Move Lower In Yields Next

Having correctly predicted the dovish relent by the ECB’s QE taper announcement last week, whose explicit “open-endedness” appeared to surprise many of his hawkish Wall Street colleagues, overnight Bloomberg macro commentator Mark Cudmore looked at bond yields and concluded that “bond bears have had their fun”, as “almost all upcoming risk events are skewed to drive 10-year Treasury yields lower rather than higher.”

Among the key catalysts cited include the Fed’s next chair, where the “dovish option”, Powell appears to be a shoo-in, while tax reform is starting to once again look shaky: “The main reason 10-year yields aren’t already lower is due to optimism that a viable House tax bill will be released this week. “Optimism” and “viable” being the key words in that sentence.”

According to Cudmore, “while we may see a tax plan this week, we’re still a very long way from having stimulative tax cuts passed, let alone flow into the economy. With optimism riding so high, disappointment seems more likely than a positive surprise.”

Then there is the “known unknown” of geopolitics: “we also have the real and imminent possibility of a renewed haven bid for Treasuries. Not only is there uncertainty about the Russia probe, with speculation that the first arrests could come as soon as Monday, but Trump is about to jet off to Asia, where he’ll have plenty of opportunities to riff on his pet topics of unfair trade and North Korea’s nukes.”

That said, Cudmore is confident one can ignore technicals at this point where much of the upside has already been priced in:

Economic data can provide some noise and volatility in both directions this week, but barring a major shock, the readings will be subsumed by other news.

As for technicals, he writes that “there was a bizarre amount of excitement around the 2.4% level in 10-year yields, thanks mainly to some prominent fund managers. But we were above that arbitrary level several days in May and for most of December through March.” And while he concedes that he is no technician “it seems that most fundamental catalysts are lined up to knock 10-year Treasury yields substantially lower.”