Treasuries Close Modestly Higher Following Recent Weakness

Treasuries saw modest strength during trading on Thursday, regaining some ground after trending lower over the past several sessions.

After seeing early strength, bond prices pulled back off their best levels but remained in positive territory. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by 1.8 basis points to 2.305 percent.

The early strength among treasuries came following the release of the Commerce Department’s preliminary report on third quarter GDP.

While the report said GDP increased by a stronger than expected 3.5 percent in the third quarter, analysts noted that the growth was largely due to positive impacts from trade and defense spending.

“Exports were certainly a bright spot but in light of the challenges overseas we have to wonder for how long,” said Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, who noted that defense spending is also “lumpy quarter to quarter.”

The report also showed a slowdown in the pace of core consumer price inflation, easing concerns about a near-term increase in interest rates.

A separate report released by the Labor Department showed a modest increase in initial jobless claims in the week ended October 25th.

The report said initial jobless claims edged up to 287,000, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 284,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to tick up to 285,000.

Meanwhile, traders seemed to shrug off the results of the Treasury Department’s auction of $29 billion worth of seven-year notes, which attracted below average demand.

The seven-year note auction drew a high yield of 2.018 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.42, while the ten previous seven-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.57.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

Today’s seven-year note auction came after the Treasury sold $29 billion worth of two-year notes on Tuesday and $35 billion worth of five-year notes on Wednesday.

Another batch of U.S. economic data could impact trading on Friday, with traders likely to keep an eye on reports on personal income and spending, consumer sentiment, and Chicago-area business activity.

Published: 2014-10-30 20:39:00 UTC+00

Treasuries Close Modestly Higher Following Recent Weakness