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Bonds, after a Friday of doing well, are taking it slow on Monday. The 30-year Treasury bond benefited from an overnight bounce but the gains are somewhat exaggerated by light volume. As of 10 a.m., tracker

GovPX

reported volume down 25% when compared with the average first quarter Monday. Lately the bond was up 16/32 to 95 11/32. The yield declined to 5.57%. The 10-year note was also significantly higher, up 9/32, yielding 5.28%. The buying is coming largely from short-term opportunists.

"Most of

the gain is just continuing momentum from Friday," said Ken Fan, bond strategist at

Paribas Capital Markets

. "I think this is just a period of time when, after you have dramatic volatility, the market has to consolidate. Until a new catalyst comes in to break us out of this level, we've run out of sellers and the buyers are very cautious."

Friday's cathartic

employment report

was likely the end to the market's raging fury. Activity should pick up later in the week with the release of February

retail sales

and

Producer Price Index

reports, but already strategists are expecting those reports to cancel each other out.

Federal Reserve

Chairman

Alan Greenspan

speaks to the

Mortgage Bankers Association

when futures trading closes at 3 p.m. EST.

Overnight volume, which was light, boosted the bond market, even though Japanese bonds weakened. The 10-year JGB rose seven basis points to 1.63%. Dollar/yen lately was down 0.89 to 121.84.