Little Changed Into Europe

The Tsy space held to a narrow range in Asia, with no tangible reaction to a BBG source piece pointing to a (near enough) imminent round of sanctions that the U.S. is set to impose on Russian individuals and entities. Broader headline flow has been light since the re-open, with T-Notes sticking to a 0-05 range, last +0-01 at 131-31, while cash Tsys print little changed across the curve. Elsewhere, the marketing of Tencent's 4-part US$ issuance, comprising of 10-, 20-, 30- & 40-Year paper, is underway. The deal was flagged earlier this week and could price as early as today.

• As a reminder, the space finished lower on Wednesday, with the curve a touch steeper as benchmarks cheapened across the curve. The 20-Year sector provided marginal underperformance, cheapening by a little over 2.0bp on the day. Fed Chair Powell headlined a raft of Fedspeak on Wednesday, reaffirming his recent guidance on interest rates, while flagging that the Fed will start tapering its Tsy purchases "well" ahead of the first rate hike. He then went on to note that he didn't think the Fed would sell their bond holdings back to the market. Powell also pointed to excess focus on the Fed's dot plot and stressed the outcome based nature of monetary policy at present. Elsewhere, geopolitical matters remain at the fore, with RTRS sources reporting that the U.S. cancelled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea. Expectations surrounding corporate issuance from some of the top financial names (post-earnings which got underway on Wednesday) helped tighten longer dated swap spreads. Focus on Coinbase's inaugural round of trading pressured the equity space during the second half of NY trade, which allowed Tsys to find a base.
• Thursday's local docket is headlined by retail sales & weekly jobless claims data, as well as another deluge of Fedspeak.