By Polya Lesova and Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices edged higher Wednesday, pushing the benchmark 10-year note’s yield back below 2% as investors focused on fresh worries about Spain in the absence of major U.S. economic data.
Yields on 10-year Treasurys 10_YEAR -0.85% fell 2 basis points to 1.98%.
Bond prices move inversely to their yields. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Yields on 30-year notes 30_YEAR -0.51% dropped 2 basis points to 3.13%.
Yields on five-year notes 5_YEAR -1.17% were down less than 1 basis point at 0.85%.
“The long end of the curve is enjoying a flight to quality rally,” said Gary Pollack, head of fixed-income trading at Deutsche Bank’s private-wealth-management unit.
Equities are lower and “concerns about the U.S. economy going forward and the Spanish bond auction [Thursday] are increasing the appeal of safe investments,” he said in emailed comments.
Treasury notes are seen as a safe-haven investment, with traders buying Treasurys at times of economic and financial worry.
On Wall Street, U.S. stocks fell after the previous session’s strong gains. No major economic data are due for release Wednesday, so earnings reports from the technology sector were in the spotlight instead. Read about Wednesday’s action in U.S. stocks.
In Europe, equity markets declined, with Spanish stocks posting particularly steep losses after the Bank of Spain reported that the bad-loans ratio at Spanish banks hit a 17-year high of 8.16% in February. Read more in Europe Markets.
Polya Lesova is MarketWatch's New York deputy bureau chief.
Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco
