MW: Treasurys slip as stocks rise ahead of auction
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices edged lower Tuesday, pushing up on yields, as U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open ahead of the government’s first of three auctions this week.
Yields on 10-year notes 10_YEAR +2.04% , which move inversely to prices, rose 3 basis points to 1.99%. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Yields on 30-year bonds 30_YEAR +1.55% increased 3 basis points to 3.06%.
Two-year yields 2_YEAR +1.56% inched up 1 basis point to 0.26%.
Alead of the opening bell on Wall Street, futures for the widely followed stock indexes all rose about 1%.
The Treasury Department will sell $32 billion in 3-year notes 3_YEAR +2.97% at 1 p.m. Eastern time.
The short-dated securities have attracted plenty of demand from investors in recent months as persistently low interest rates encourage them to buy slightly longer-dated securities.
“The 3-year note [auction] should be solid as usual as real money continues to roll out the curve,” said George Goncalves, head of U.S. rates strategy for Nomura Securities.
The current 3-year note yield rose 1 basis point to 0.38%. Last month, the government sold the maturities at 0.352%. See recent Treasury auction results.
The U.S. will sell 10-year notes on Wednesday and 30-year bonds in the subsequent session.
Treasury yields have remained in fairly tight ranges in recent weeks, and analysts expect that to continue as renewed worries about banking problems in Europe and a potential Greek default keep investors in the relative safety of Treasury bonds despite improving U.S. economic data. Read about the range in Treasurys.
Also, a growing number of analysts and investors expect the Federal Reserve to see justification later this year to conduct another bond-purchase program. See story on Fed expectations.
There are no major economic releases scheduled for Tuesday’s U.S. session, but a handful of Fed officials will be making public remarks.
