WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Treasuries fluctuated over the course of the trading session on Thursday before eventually ending the day firmly in positive territory.
Bond prices gave back ground after an early advance but moved back to the upside going into the close. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 4.6 basis points to 4.309 percent.
The early strength among treasuries came following the release of a Labor Department report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits rose by more than expected in the week ended March 30th.
The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 221,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level of 212,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 214,000 from the 210,000 originally reported for the previous week.
With the bigger than expected increase, jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 225,000 in the week ended January 27th.
The advance by jobless claims generated some optimism about the outlook for interest rates, although the likelihood of a rate cut in June remains uncertain.
CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 66.4 percent chance the Federal Reserve will cut rates by a quarter point in June but a 32.2 percent chance rates will remain unchanged.
Buying interest waned over the course of the session but picked back up in the final hour of trading as traders looked ahead to the release of the Labor Department's more closely watched monthly employment report on Friday.
Economists currently expected employment to jump by 200,000 jobs in March after surging by 275,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.9 percent.
Trading on Friday is likely to be driven by reaction to the monthly jobs report and its impact on the outlook for interest rates.
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