T-Notes Tight, Cash Closed Until London Hours

A bid in the equity space in the wake of quarterly earnings releases from some of the U.S. tech giants (Apple & Facebook) was evident in Asia-Pac hours, resulting in the S&P 500 e-mini contract hitting a fresh all-time high, with the NASDAQ 100 outperforming (the Fed's messaging also supported equities). The uptick in equities applied some light pressure to T-Notes, with nothing in the way of surprises provided in President Biden's latest address. T-Notes last -0-01 at 132-02, 0-01+ off lows, operating in a 0-04+ range, on ~45K lots, with liquidity thinned and cash Tsys closed until London hours on the back of a Japanese holiday.

• As a reminder, T-Notes traded to best levels of the day (but remained within the confines of the recently observed range) on Wednesday as the FOMC hammered home its stance, leaving monetary policy settings unchanged, "marked to market" its economic assessment and reiterated its view re: the transitory nature of the current inflationary impulse. Fed Chair Powell stressed that "it will take some time before we see substantial further progress," referring to the Fed's bar for starting to taper its asset purchases from the current level of US$120bn a month. "We've said we would let the public know when it is time to have that conversation. We said we would do that well in advance to the decision of tapering," he noted. The cash Tsy curve bull steepened on the day, with the belly of the curve leading as 5s richened by ~3.0bp.
• Q1 GDP and weekly jobless claims data headline locally on Thursday.