Did Mario Draghi And The Wall Street Journal Just Engineer A Bond Selloff?

Right, so this hit at exactly 7:14 a.m. EST this morning:

DRAGHI IS SAID TO ADDRESS JACKSON HOLE AUG. CONFERENCE: WSJ

“European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is scheduled to address the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference in August for the first time in three years, according to a person familiar with the matter, in a speech that is expected to give a further sign of the ECB’s growing confidence in the eurozone economy and its reduced dependence on monetary stimulus,” the Journal wrote, adding that “Mr. Draghi’s speech in Wyoming will take place less than two weeks before the ECB’s September policy meeting, and will provide an obvious opportunity to signal a policy shift before the blackout window closes a week ahead of the meeting.”

Yes, “an obvious opportunity” to telegraph an ECB exit.

And of course this leak to the Journal is itself an “obvious” attempt to telegraph the telegraphing.

This has become truly ridiculous. Forward guidance is one thing, but they’re literally trying to micromanage expectations by the hour.

Yesterday it was Poloz hiking to preserve the credibility of coordinated hawkish shift Draghi set in motion in Sintra back on June 27 while Janet Yellen simultaneously leaned dovish on Capitol Hill.

Now, on Thursday, you’ve got news that Draghi will speak at Jackson Hole, which looks to be an effort to at least partially reverse the risk-on sentiment we got on Wednesday.

More poignantly, these fuckers are quite literally trying to engineer a Thursday bond sell off before our very eyes and the idea seems to be that they can do it without risking any concurrent weakness in equities because no one will want to sell with Yellen still talking.

Look:

And here’s WSJ congratulating themselves in an article out just a few minutes ago:

Prices of U.S. government bonds fell Thursday, breaking a three-day winning streak, after The Wall Street Journal reported that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is scheduled to attend a high-profile central bank forum for the first time in three years.

The WSJ report sparked a bout of selling in the bond market, pushing up bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield was recently at 2.334%, compared with 2.325% Wednesday. Yields rise as bond prices fall.

It’s absurd: