United States Treasuries yields jumped on Friday after investors parsed fresh economic data for signs of what the Federal Reserve might do next.
At 6:25 a.m. ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose more than 2 basis points to 4.263 percent, with the yield on the 2-year Treasury rising almost 4 basis points to 4.607 percent, per latest data at 6:25 a.m.
Bond prices move inversely to yield for anyone, not in on Wall Street jargon, and vice versa. Each basis point represents 0.01 percent.
The data on Thursday revealed the ambivalent combination of news in the economic developments. Regarding changes in retail trade in January, the reading was -0.8 percent, which turned out to be lower than the -0.3 percent drop in sales that experts had predicted for January.
But on the plus side, the latest numbers on first-time weekly jobless claims provided evidence of robust labor market performance, falling to 212,000 from the revised 220,000 the month before.
Such gyrations in the proxy economic data have investors watching closely for clues about Fed monetary policy moves ahead. Last fortnight, on days when investors bet that the Fed was on its way to cutting interest rates, rates rose. On other days, as concern grew about how much higher rates could dent the economy, Fed officials again stated that incoming data would guide decision-making.
This week, the January consumer price index rose 0.3 percent month-on-month and 3.1 percent year-on-year, a bit higher than most economists had anticipated.
Investors will also await more inflation data, in the form of the producer price index, on Friday, the preliminary building permit numbers for January, and an updated look at consumer sentiment, due on Friday.
Source: Sophie Kiderlin,CNBC February 16, 2024
