Matthew Graham

A man is preparing to climb the equivalent height of Mount Everest by scaling Blencathra 14 times in a row.

A lively canine companion is hoping to find his forever home.

A 20-YEAR-old chef from the Lake District who fell into baking from a pot‑washing summer job is now earning praise for her intricate pies.

You've seen the "good vibes only" t-shirt perhaps? Bond traders left theirs at home this morning. That's unfortunate as there isn't much beyond vibes to set the tone this week. Over the weekend, bad vibes came courtesy of another round of escalation in the Iran war. Additionally, the safe-haven buying that helped bonds on Friday has reversed course somewhat as stocks find their footing. At 7:30am, news of a proposed 10-day ceasefire caused yields and fuel prices to drop quickly but not excessively. 30 minutes later, the move was reversed after Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia. 10yr yields are starting out several bps higher and MBS are down about an eighth. On the bright side, there's still quite a bit of room for yields to find a supportive ceiling between current levels and recent highs.

Last week ended on a promising note with Friday's rates falling just barely below the previous Friday's levels. This was a relief after the top-tier 30yr fixed rate matched 11-month highs for the average lender earlier in the week.

While we certainly CAN put short term market movement under a microscope and entertain various potential sources of motivation, it's just as good to take a few giant steps back and observe the bigger picture trend. When we do, we see a decisively weaker trend since October 2025 with additional volatility and selling pressure after the start of the Iran war. Unsurprisingly resurgence of hostilities has put upward pressure on both fuel prices and bond yields. This is definitely one of those "under the microscope" market movers at the start of the week. There were also some tradeflow considerations regardless of news headlines. This was seen in the form of both stocks and bonds noticeably shifting just after 9:30am. Until that point, stocks were improving and bonds were doing a decent job holding sideways. Afterward, both lost ground.

The Old Toll Bar Café in Gretna Green will close on July 21, the business has confirmed.

While last week's CPI and PPI reports were unabashedly great news, the bond market spent Friday and yesterday gradually unwinding most of the resulting gains. The least complicated way to approach this phenomenon would be to observe that fuel prices spent the same 2 days breaking to the highest levels since May 19th and they continue to hold near those highs today. Even without that fuel price rally, we were already skeptical that June inflation data was a durable justification for lower yields in light of the resurgence of the Iran war in July and the associated resurgence of inflation risks. As we discussed last week in the "crack spread" article, the x factor here is the fact that consumer fuel prices are doing much worse than oil prices suggest. A chart of 10yr yields vs gasoline futures makes this clear. In this context, bonds are actually a bit stronger than the May 19th correlation suggested.

In late July, 2025, 30yr fixed rates embarked on an excellent adventure, moving down from 6.75% on July 31st to 5.99% by late February, 2026. Since then, things haven't been great thanks to war-related fuel price drama and stronger econ data (the supreme court ruling on tariffs didn't help either, because it increased Treasury issuance implications).

"Headwinds, Cont'd" could be apply to the entirety of 2022-2026 or just March-July of 2026. But let's just focus on today's installment. For the second day this week, there wasn't any stellar correlation between bonds and other markets, econ data, or news headlines. Still, we wouldn't say that today's moderate weakness was a mystery move. In fact, it may even be fairly straightforward. Fuel prices came into the week at the highest level since May 19th (which was the highest since 2022). Front month oil futures spiked in the early AM hours and the peak coincided with the peak in bond yields. Additionally, bonds sold off at 9:30am for the second straight day, suggesting some tradeflow considerations surrounding the NYSE open and earnings season money shuffling.