The U.S treasury bonds slumped on Tuesday for 2nd straight day as investors cheered the hawkish comments made by the Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren about United States and Federal Reserve outlook. Also, consistent rally in crude oil prices pushed Treasury bonds further down. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, moved rose 0.90 pct to 1.787 pct and the yield on the 2-year Treasury bond climbed 1.66 pct to 0.757 pct by 1230 GMT.
The Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren (voter in 2016) said that he sees more rate hikes than predicted by pessimistic investors and market prediction of 1/4-pct rate hike per year unjustified. Said preferred inflation measure is much closer to target, as compared to last year and United States economy is fundamentally sound. Said it is appropriate to probe how low unemployment can go and the Fed should not pause policy so long as to raise risk of recession. Said market-implied rate path would risk overheating economy and started to see wages pick up in some markets. The Fed will be raising rates faster than the markets think, he added.
On Sunday, the negotiations between Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia failed to reach an agreement in the Doha round of talks on Sunday to strike a deal on oil output freeze. Instead, crude oil prices rose on Tuesday as Kuwait reported on Sunday that its crude production fell to 1.1 million barrel per day, from up 2.8 million barrel in March as workers went on stick. The International benchmark for crude oil prices, Brent futures rose 1.28 pct to $43.45, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil climbed 1.41 pct to $40.34 by 1245 GMT.
After wave of disappointing data last week, investors may be expecting no more hikes from Federal Reserve in its up-coming policy meeting. Nevertheless, we continue to see a more careful, wait and see approach to continue being employed by the Fed likely to materialize in higher rates come the June FOMC meeting (still delivering only 50bps of additional tightening over the course of 2016).
Also, the Federal Reserve Chair Yellen said that there is a great deal of uncertainty over interest rate hike and therefore, she favours a cautious approach.
Lastly, the investors now focus on to a lighter flow of data in the week ahead, highlighted by housing starts/building permits, Philadelphia Fed manufacturing activity and Markit US manufacturing PMI towards the end of the week. Markets also receive a 5-Year TIPS auction on Thursday.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com