Utilities have been a fairly good reflection of where short-term sentiment has been this year and that’s to say it’s been all over the place. It appears that the “growth as safety” trade might finally be fading out here. Long-term Treasury prices are at their highest level since the end of last summer. It looks like the worst may be over for bank stocks.

Treasuries were up sharply in Q1 and small-caps significantly lagged large-caps, but utilities are still figuring out which way they want to go. There’s a fair amount of underlying weakness here. If the mega-caps falter, it could ignite another wave of interest in safety trades. Of all the markets supporting the idea of an April event, lumber is one of the strongest.

It’s tough to get a read on market sentiment looking at utilities. Tech may be drawing interest from people looking to avoid some of the more economically-sensitive areas of the market. Treasury volatility has really picked up over the past month and, while traditional risk-on/risk-off behavior appears to have returned again, the choppy market action has yet to turn into a sharper risk-off move.