There's your breakout ...

I've been talking about the 113 and a half level on the Long Bond future as a critical technical level. This week, we broke out to the upside there, and on heavy volume. 10-year Treasury Note yields also cracked the 4.54% resistance a few days ago ... and are now below 4.5%. The catalyst: Crummy U.S. economic data. The Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index sank to 49.9 in November from 53.5 in October, and initial jobless claims shut up to 357,000 in the week ended November 25. That's the highest since a spike last fall related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. You could argue some of the spike THIS time around stems from holiday week adjustments. But the bond market isn't buying it. Or rather, bond traders ARE buying the news ... sending Treasury prices higher and interest rates lower.