Treasuries Finish Choppy Trading Day Modestly Higher

Treasuries showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading session on Thursday before ending the day modestly higher.

Bond prices spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line but moved to the upside going into the close. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, dipped 2.1 basis points to 1.844 percent.

The choppy trading on the day came as traders seemed reluctant to continue to making significant moves following the volatility seen over the past few sessions, which saw treasuries soar early in the week before pulling back sharply on Wednesday.

Traders may also have decided to stick to the sidelines ahead of the release of the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report on Friday.

Economists currently expect employment to jump by 400,000 jobs in February after surging by 467,000 jobs in January, while the unemployment rate is expected to edge down to 3.9 percent from 4.0 percent.

A day ahead of the release of the monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report showing a modest decrease in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended February 26th.

The report showed initial jobless claims dipped to 215,000, a decrease of 18,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 233,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 225,000 from the 232,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the Institute for Supply Management unexpectedly showed a continued slowdown in the pace of growth in U.S. service sector activity in the month of February.

The ISM said its services PMI fell to 56.5 in February from 59.9 in January. While a reading above 50 still indicates growth in the service sector, economists had expected the index to inch up to 61.0.

The services PMI decreased for the third straight month after reaching a record high of 68.4 in November of 2021.

The situation in Ukraine is likely to remain on investors’ minds on Friday, although they may pay even closer attention to the monthly jobs report.

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