The ol' inverted-intuition thing -- gets me every time. The *product* you are buying produces a stream of cash. With more persons demanding the product, the necessary stream goes down while the price (for the product) goes up. So, in 'scarier' times, bond prices go up even as coupon pmts go down. Or, in 'FED-a'flowing' times, bond prices will sink, and *maybe* pmts (on stuff yet-to-be-issued) will go up. So, the answer to your question (TBT, TMV, TTT) is, "I don't know." because they are ETFs, not the underlying paper itself. I don't know what determines their payout or market value, or when they go back to market for re-ups. [Think in terms of VXX -- a *marvelous* idea, until you realize the coming VIX-fut-driven contango.] IN THINKING FURTHER... I think the answer to your question and to mine, would be found in putting up a graph of TBT, TMV, TTT against the SPY (+WMV+DIA+QQQ, "WTH"), and compare movement. A positive/zero correlation would tell you a lot about how TBT, TMV, TTT are structured.
It is quite common for a particular trading instrument to sleep for many many days. What you should do is to trade other trading instruments that are not sleeping. eg Russell, Nasdaq.