By Greg Morcroft, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices managed only fractional gains Monday as calmer European debt markets eased demand for U.S. government debt.
The benchmark 10-year note 10_YEAR -1.14% yielded 1.66% on Monday morning.
The Treasury market will likely remain quiet with no U.S. data on Monday’s calendar. Activity should pick up later this week as a slew government statistics hits the market.
Tuesday sees the release of retail sales and producer prices, while the consumer price index tracking retail-level inflation as well as housing starts and industrial production are all also due this week.
In Europe, Italy sold 8 billion euros ($9.829 billion) of 12-month Treasury bills amid good demand, at an average yield of 2.767%, somewhat higher than the 2.697% rate it paid at the previous debt auction for similar maturity on July 12. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of investor demand, calculated by dividing the amount of bids by the amount sold, came in at 1.69, up from 1.55 at the previous auction. Read more about the latest European debt markets, on MarketWatch
Greg Morcroft is MarketWatch's financial editor in New York.
