Business & Finance

US bond yields rise ahead of supply

Published Updated

Macron's win revived appetite for stocks, propelling the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to record highs, and reduced safe-haven demand for bonds. Some traders heading into Sunday's vote had feared a possible upset by his anti-European Union rival Marine Le Pen.

With the closely watched French election in the rear view, this week's domestic data and demand at the quarterly refunding will determine the near-term direction on bond yields, analysts said.

"It's a fairly heavy week with data and supply," said Ellis Phifer, senior market strategist at Raymond James at Memphis, Tennessee.

The week's key reports will be those on producer and consumer prices as well as retail sales later this week, analysts said.

The Treasury Department will kick off its latest refunding, where it will repay $49.7 billion to investors on maturing bonds, on Tuesday with a $24 billion sale of three-year notes .

It will sell $23 billion in 10-year Treasuries on Wednesday and $15 billion in 30-year bonds on Thursday.

In early Monday trading, the benchmark 10-year note yield was up more than 2 basis points at 2.378 percent but short of the near four-week high set on Friday following a solid US payrolls report for April.

The yield on 30-year bonds was more than 2 basis points higher at 3.016 percent, while the two-year yield was up 1.6 basis points at 1.334 percent.

Possible demand for this week's Treasury supply was based partly on investors' perception on further rate increases from the Federal Reserve, analysts said.

Interest rate futures implied traders saw an 88 percent chance the central bank would raise rates by a quarter point to 1.00-1.25 percent at its June 13-14 policy meeting, up from 79 percent late on Friday, CME Group's FedWatch program showed.

Earlier on Monday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said strong bond demand and sluggish workforce growth would keep a lid on rates in the forseeable future, which would allow the Fed to keep rates at current levels.

At a separate event, Cleveland Fed chief Loretta Mester said further rate increases are warranted as the economy has reached the Fed's employment goal and is closing in on its 2 percent inflation target.

 

Copyright Reuters, 2017