By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices rose Friday as U.S. corporate earnings cast a shadow on the economic outlook and European leaders took few new steps at a summit to end a debt crisis.
Yields on 10-year notes 10_YEAR -1.03% , which move inversely to prices, slipped 2 basis points to 1.81%, after ending the prior session at the highest level in a month. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.
That level is right around a key technical level that has spurred some buying in the last 48 hours. Read: Treasurys hit technical level; give up gains.
“The market’s kind of flirting with supports with a bid of some magnitude (relative to this environment) on the back of further Asia, really Japanese, buying largely in the 10-year sector,” said bond strategists at CRT Capital Group.
“Not to generalize, but Japanese investors have shown respect for 200-day moving averages in the recent past.”
On a weekly basis, 10-year yields continued their back-and-forth pattern, rising from last Friday from 1.66%.
Yields on 30-year bonds 30_YEAR -0.46% edged down Friday 1 basis point to 3%, after closing above 3% on Thursday for the first time in a month.
For the week, they’re up from 2.84%
Five-year note yields 5_YEAR -1.52% shed 2 basis points to 0.77%. For the week, they’ve increased from 0.66% — the most since mid-March.
As for a European Union summit, European leaders agreed to establish a framework by Jan. 1 that would allow the European Central Bank to eventually oversee euro-zone banks, but with national regulators maintaining day-to-day supervision. Read bbc.com: EU Summit: France says banking union helps eurozone fusion.
Treasurys may also continue to benefit from lackluster earnings from U.S. companies including General Electric Co. GE -0.44% , McDonald’s Corp. MCD -0.88% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.32% —all giants in their respective sectors.
That’s reducing the appeal of equities.
Deborah Levine is a MarketWatch reporter, based in San Francisco.
