10-year Treasury yield posts biggest one-day climb since March, a day after Federal Reserve's policy update

MW 10-year Treasury yield posts biggest one-day climb since March, a day after Federal Reserve's policy update

By Vivien Lou Chen and Mark DeCambre

U.S. Treasury yields posted their biggest rise in months on Thursday, with the 10-year breaking up through 1.40% and the 2-year extending its climb since Wednesday's Federal Reserve policy update.

Rising U.S. stock indexes in the past two days, coupled with a flattening Treasury yield curve on Wednesday, suggest that many investors remain skeptical that the central bank will be able to deliver as many interest rate hikes as it thinks it can in coming years. That sentiment is lending itself to a more risk-on trading environment that includes a selloff in government debt. Meanwhile, investors continued to watch developments with China's Evergrande Group , with reports suggesting that the Chinese government would only come to bailout the heavily leveraged property developer at the last minute as its debts come due.

What Treasury yields are doing

What's driving the market?

Yields were higher across the curve on Thursday, with the widely watched spreads between two- and ten-year yields and five- and 30-year yields stabilizing. The spreads had flattened on Wednesday, following the Fed's policy update, on the expectation from traders that the central bank won't get as many rate hikes done as it thinks it can. The flattening occurred even though policy makers had penciled in a sooner-than-expected rate increase for 2022, and said a tapering of monthly bond purchases "may soon be warranted."

The Federal Reserve has set the stage for an announcement of tapering at the next central bank meeting in November, which could see reductions of the monthly purchases of $80 billion in Treasurys and $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities kick off by December, especially if the labor market maintains its trajectory of improvement from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some analysts attributed Wednesday's bond market reaction to a dovish interpretation of the Fed's decision, considering fewer-than-expected policy makers called for a first policy interest rate increase next year from the current 0% to 0.25% range. Others noted that even with tapering of bond purchases the Fed is still buying sizable amounts of assets, with its balance sheet at around $8.5 trillion, as of Sept. 13. An update on the central bank's balance sheet is due at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Meanwhile, the Bank of England kept its monetary policy unchanged, but downgraded projections for third-quarter economic growth. The BOE unanimously decided to keep interest rates at 0.1%, and its two newest members were on the side of maintaining its bond purchase program in a 7-2 vote. That news came as the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey made a surprise decision to cut interest rates, lowering them to 18% from 19%.

In data releases, U.S. weekly jobless benefit claims jumped to a one-month high in what largely appears to be a case of California catching up on a large backlog of claims. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 16,000 to 351,000 in the week ended Sept. 18, the government said Thursday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would total 320,000. The IHS Markit reading of the U.S. services sector hit a 14-month low, and the manufacturing measure dropped to a 5-month low, as private sector firms in the U.S. signaled a slowing pace of expansion.

Meanwhile, an auction of $14 billion 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities came in as "another solid offering," said strategist Ben Jeffery of BMO Capital Markets.

Progress in Congress toward raising the U.S. federal debt limit is also being monitored by fixed-income investors. On Wednesday, six former U.S. Treasury secretaries from Democratic and Republican administrations warned that failing to raise the debt limit on time and allowing the U.S. to default could cause serious harm to the economy and national security.

What analysts are saying

-Vivien Lou Chen

$(END)$ Dow Jones Newswires

September 23, 2021 15:52 ET (19:52 GMT)

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