Government to announce how much debt it will sell next week
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices stayed mostly under pressure Thursday, pushing long-term yields higher, after U.S. data showed initial jobless claims fell 23,000 last week to 452,000.
The drop in first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended Oct. 16 was roughly in line with economists’ expectations. See more on the Labor Department’s latest tally of initial filings for jobless claims.
Yields on 10-year notes (UST10Y 2.49, +0.01, +0.20%) , which move inversely to prices, rose 2 basis points to 2.49%. A basis point is 0.01%.
Yields on 2-year notes (UST2YR 0.36, +0.00, +1.14%) sat little changed at 0.35%, not far from the all-time low of 0.33%.
Still to come, the Treasury Department will announce how much in inflation-indexed debt as well as 2-year, 5-year (UST5YR 1.12, +0.02, +1.45%) , and 7-year notes (UST7YR 1.80, +0.01, +0.67%) it will issue next week.
Economic data are unlikely to sway the bond market much unless they change the likelihood that the Federal Reserve announces a new bond-buying program at its monetary-policy meeting on Nov. 2-3, analysts said. Because this round of quantitative easing would follow the U.S. central bank’s first round during the credit crisis, analysts have taken to calling the program QE2.
Until November, “every day seems to simply be a game of anticipation for the now universally expected QE2,” said strategists at Nomura Securities.
On Wednesday, Treasurys gained after the Fed reported that economic activity rose at a modest pace through early October.
