After turning higher over the course of the previous session, treasuries moved back to the downside during trading on Thursday.
Bond prices drifted lower as the day progressed before ending the day moderately below the unchanged line. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose by 3.1 basis points to 2.239 percent.
The pullback by treasuries came as stocks regained some ground after moving mostly lower over the three previous sessions.
Traders looked to pick up stocks at somewhat reduced levels despite a continued decrease by the price of crude oil, which fell to a new six-year closing low.
Treasuries remained in the red even though the Treasury Department’s auction of $13 billion worth of thirty-year bonds attracted above average demand.
The thirty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 2.978 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.42, while the ten previous thirty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.33.
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 thirty-year bond auction came after the Treasury sold $24 billion worth of three-year notes on Tuesday and $21 billion worth of ten-year notes on Wednesday.
On the economic front, the Labor Department released a report this morning showing that initial jobless claims rose to a five-month high in the week ended December 5th.
The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 282,000, an increase of 13,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 269,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 270,000.
With the bigger than expected increase, jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 296,000 in the week ended July 4th.
A separate report from the Labor Department showed that import prices fell less than expected in the month of November, although the report also showed a bigger than expected drop in export prices.
Trading on Friday may be impacted by the release of a slew of U.S. economic data, including reports on retail sales, producer prices, and consumer sentiment.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com