NEW YORK: US Treasury debt prices fell on Tuesday, pushing yields on benchmark 10-year notes to near two-month highs after stronger- than-expected services sector data portrayed the U.S. economy as rebounding from winter sluggishness.
Yields on 30-year bonds rose to 2015 highs in another down day for Treasuries, whose prices have slumped over the last seven sessions amid light volumes, soft demand for new bonds, and rising yields on German government bonds.
The selling on Tuesday, often by traders winding down Treasury positions as inflation pressures show signs of quickening, accelerated after the Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 57.8 last month from 56.5 in March. Analysts had been looking for a reading of 56.2, according to a Reuters survey.
"That was better than forecast," said Anthony Valeri, fixed-income strategist at LPL Financial in San Diego. "But fundamentals aside, what you are seeing here is investors who are too long on Treasuries being forced to sell."
Some traders were positioning ahead of Friday's closely-watched U.S. jobs report, a potentially market-moving event that may influence U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers readying to end near-zero interest rate policies.
Others are shifting cash to Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) as U.S. and European data indicate inflation pressures are gaining traction.
Shortly before the ISM report, an investor placed a large trade in June 2016 Eurodollar futures that was 112 standard deviations from the normal volume in any one-minute period going back three months.
"People are not pricing in enough for the Fed," said Tom Tucci, head of Treasuries trading at CIBC in New York. "Someone decided that the front-end is too rich."
The U.S. 10-year Treasury note was last off 14/32 to yield 2.1853 percent after rising as high as 2.201 percent, a level last seen on March 10.
The long bond was off 26/32 in price to yield 2.9113 percent, near a session high last seen on Dec. 8.
Early trading in U.S. government debt on Tuesday was choppy and included a short-lived turn-up in prices after the government reported the U.S. trade deficit surged to its widest level in nearly 6-1/2 years in March as imports rebounded from a labor dispute at key West Coast ports.
"The data we got this morning was really pretty poor, suggesting that GDP is going to be revised lower," said Tom Simons, money market economist at Jefferies LLC.
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