1.   Along with the brightening long-term pictures, bond market participants were heartened to see that transactions agreed to in recent days actually settled Wednesday for the first time.

2.   Analysts agree that the lack of economic reports this week will mean that bond market participants will focus on overseas events, the dollar and stock market activity.

3.   Once again, as was the case with Long-Term Capital Management, the majority of bond market participants are finding themselves all in the same troubling trades.

4.   Some investors said bond market participants had already discounted an improvement of that size.

5.   The employment report, like other recent economic data, hinted that growth had moderated, which has cheered bond market participants, whose investments are eroded by inflation.

6.   This allayed the initial concerns of bond market participants, who had feared the effects of a massive flux of bonds on the market.

7.   Until last month, many bond market participants were confident that the central bank would not move to raise short-term interest rates anytime soon.