GOOD MORNING! Treasury yields, being slightly higher in pre-market trading, proved to be a head fake. When the cash market opened and stocks headed south led by big techs on concerns about earnings, Treasury yields re-connected to equities and followed stocks lower but continued to move lower as stocks rebounded. Early re-balancing of funds and portfolios for month-end also may have been a factor in the markets’ maneuvering. The weird combination of stocks, Treasury yields plus the dollar moving lower gave some glitter back to gold.
    There is more headline roulette happening this morning. One is that President Trump is set to lift the levies on foreign auto parts. The Treasury said it will issue more debt between now and June than previously predicted. The quarterly refunding schedule and amounts will be announced tomorrow. Treasury prices are sagging a bit on that headline. GM’s earnings beat estimates, giving the Dow futures a lift in early trading while the S&P and NASDAQ lag. There were also some headlines coming out of China that suggests the trade war between it and the US isn’t going to end anytime soon. The data calendar picks up today with March’s advance goods trade balance, Job Openings and Layoff Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and April’s Consumer Confidence Index from the Conference Board.