Of all of the motivations in all the markets, this one had to walk into ours.  Or perhaps it rolled in on tank tracks.  Just over an hour ago, South Korea’s president declared martial law.  If you don’t follow Korean politics, yes, this is a head scratcher.  Upon verifying the authenticity of the headlines, rather than scratch their heads, investors simply bought bonds in a classic, modest safe haven rally.  This has been the dominant theme so far this morning, turning modest overnight losses to modest early morning gains.  The forthcoming JOLTS data could change or accelerate the move.

A longer term chart emphasizes the small scale nature of today’s move.  The big gains happened as the beginning of last week and little has changed since then.