Volatility in Treasuries could decrease due to the Federal Open Market Committee's intention to begin pushing up the release of its meeting minutes from six weeks to three.
The FOMC announced last week its decision to speed up the release of the minutes and Wall Street analysts say having an earlier peek inside the collective mind of the FOMC could calm volatility in a market moved by economic data. "Having the minutes in hand would help us see what the Fed is looking at," said Joseph Shatz, senior government strategist at Merrill Lynch.
In addition, releasing the report before economic indicators such as the employment report could reduce volatility when those figures are announced. "The longer you leave the release of the minutes, the more time you have for conflicting economic data to come out," said James Stedman, global head of futures and options at eSpeed. He said the additional clarity of the move may move futures prices by a couple of basis points and would affect yields on Treasuries, although he declined to speculate by how much.
