Following the strong upward move seen over the course of the previous session, treasuries saw some further upside during trading on Thursday.
Bond prices moved higher in early trading and remained firmly positive throughout the session. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 4.5 basis points to 2.084 percent.
With the decrease on the day, the ten-year yield ended the session at its lowest closing level in well over three months.
The continued strength among treasuries came amid a sell-off on Wall Street, with the Dow falling by about 300 points and on pace to end the session at a nearly ten-month closing low.
The weakness on Wall Street partly reflects ongoing concerns about the situation in China on the heels of another volatile day in the Chinese stock market.
China’s Shanghai Composite Index showed a substantial move back to the downside on the day, plummeting by 3.4 percent after jumping 1.2 percent on Wednesday.
Traders have also expressed continued uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates following the release of a batch of largely upbeat U.S. economic data.
The National Association of Realtors released a report this morning showing that existing home sales unexpectedly rose to their highest level in well over eight years in July.
NAR said existing home sales climbed 2.0 percent to an annual rate of 5.59 million in July from a downwardly revised 5.48 million in June.
The continued increase came as a surprise to economists, who had expected existing home sales to drop to a rate of 5.40 million from the 5.49 million originally reported for the previous week.
With the unexpected increase, existing home sales rose to their highest level since reaching 5.79 million in February of 2007.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve also released a report showing a bigger than expected increase by its index of regional manufacturing activity.
Following the slew of economic data released this morning, the economic calendar for Friday is relatively quiet, potentially leading to choppy trading.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com