NEW YORK: Safe-haven US Treasury yields were little changed on Thursday, with traders cautious about pushing yields below multi-week lows touched in early trading, amid continued potential for an aggressive path of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes this year.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields hit 2.119 percent in early trading to mark their lowest level in 10 weeks, but later drifted higher.
All other yields on Treasuries maturing between 2-30 years hit over three-week lows in early trading before rising from those levels to trade little changed on the day.
"It's maybe just a little bit of fatigue as we hit the lows here, with the Fed on such an aggressive path, buyers are hesitant to take yields below the recent range," said Justin Hoogendoorn, head of fixed income strategy at Piper Jaffray in Chicago.
Projections from Fed policymakers last month indicated they expect four rate increases this year.
Treasuries failed to attract significant safety bids despite declines in stock markets worldwide on market volatility in China and a continued slide in oil prices. Yields move inversely to prices.
Many traders likely remained on the sidelines in anticipation of Friday's US non-farm payrolls report for December, said Matthias Rusinski, US rates strategist at UBS in New York. Economists polled by Reuters expect US employers to have added 200,000 jobs in December, which would be a drop from 211,000 in the prior month.
Rusinski said Treasury yields could fall again if US shares hold their declines or if concerns over China lead investors to believe that the Fed will refrain from hiking rates again at the central bank's March meeting.
US 10-year Treasury notes were last flat in price to yield 2.177 percent, roughly unchanged from late Wednesday's yield.
US 30-year Treasury bonds were last down 4/32 in price to yield 2.946 percent, from a yield of 2.940 percent late Wednesday.
The latest 30-year yield was up from the session low of 2.885 percent hit in early trading.
US two-year notes were last mostly flat in price to yield 0.976 percent, from a yield of 0.984 percent late Wednesday and a session low of 0.936 percent.
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