NEW YORK: Traders steepened the US Treasury yield curve on Thursday as stock markets rose on optimism about the public health impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant. The benchmark 10-year yield was up 3.5 basis points at 1.4926% in afternoon trading, with Treasury markets set to close early at 2 p.m. ET (1900 GMT) ahead of the holiday weekend.
The note’s yield went as high as 1.501%, its first time above 1.5% since Dec. 13.
James Barnes, head of fixed income for Bryn Mawr Trust, said the rise seemed tied to gains on Wall Street’s main indexes.
Stocks rose after vaccine makers AstraZeneca and Novavax said their shots protected against Omicron as UK data suggested it may cause proportionally fewer hospital cases than the Delta variant. US regulators also authorized Merck & Co’s antiviral pill.
Expectations about inflation likely will not change much until there is more guidance from the Federal Reserve next month, Barnes added. Until then, he said, “It seems like the bond market is taking direction from developments on Omicron.”
Earlier in the session, investors bid up bond prices after US weekly jobless claims held steady below pre-pandemic levels.
A closely watched part of the US Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at 80 basis points, about two basis points higher than Wednesday’s close.
The two-year US Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was up 2 basis points at 0.6874%.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.