By Ben Eisen, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices edged lower Friday, sending the benchmark 10-year note yield back over 3% ahead of an economics conference in which Federal Reserve officials were expected to speak.
The 10-year note 10_YEAR +0.23% yield, which rises as prices fall, was up 1 basis point on the day at 3.003%. Since crossing 3% last week — one sign of the rising rate environment — the benchmark yield has meandered back and forth over that threshold.
The 30-year bond 30_YEAR +0.43% yield rose 2 basis points to 3.942%, while the 5-year note 5_YEAR +0.64% yield rose half a basis point to 1.731%.
Trading has remained relatively light this week as market participants trickle back to their desks after the holidays.
The market will look toward Philadelphia Friday as economists gather for a conference of the American Economic Association . Those speeches will be closely watched following the decision by the Fed last month to begin scaling back the pace of its $85 billion in monthly bond buys. The stimulus will begin with reductions of $10 billion per month as the central bank pivots toward emphasizing its commitment to holding key policy rates near zero.
Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser will discuss the rising-rate environment at 10:15 a.m. Eastern, and Fed Gov. Jeremy Stein will talk about how banks act as patient fixed-income investors at 1:15 p.m.
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, will speak at 2:30 p.m. about how the Fed is changing. Separately, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker will speak in Baltimore at 1 p.m.
Following the Fed’s decision to wind down its stimulus, investors continued to pull money out of bonds. Buyers withdrew $1.7 billion from bond funds in the week ended Wednesday, marking the fifth consecutive week of outflows, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research.
