Following the advance seen in the previous session, treasuries moved back to the downside over the course of the trading day on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Treasuries regained ground after an initial drop by pulled back firmly into negative territory. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, climbed 3.7 basis points to 1.480 percent.<\/p>\n
With the increase on the day, the ten-year yield rebounded after ending the previous session at its lowest closing level in nearly four months.<\/p>\n
The pullback by treasuries came as traders looked ahead to the release of the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report on Friday.<\/p>\n
Economists currently expect the report to show employment jumped by 690,000 jobs in June after surging up by 559,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate is expected to dip to 5.7 percent from 5.8 percent.<\/p>\n
A day ahead of the release of the monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report this morning showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by more than expected in the week ended June 26th.<\/p>\n
The report said initial jobless claims slid to 364,000, a decrease of 51,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 415,000.<\/p>\n
Economist had expected jobless claims to dip to 393,000 from the 411,000 originally reported for the previous week.<\/p>\n
With the bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 256,000 in the week ended March 14, 2020.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a separate report released by the Institute for Supply Management showed a modest slowdown in the pace of growth in U.S. manufacturing activity in the month of June.<\/p>\n
The ISM said its manufacturing PMI slipped to 60.6 in June from 61.2 in May, although a reading above 50 still indicates growth in the manufacturing sector. Economists had expected the index to edge down to 61.0.<\/p>\n
The Commerce Department also released a report showing an unexpected decrease in construction spending in the month of May.<\/p>\n
Trading on Friday is likely to be driven by reaction to the monthly jobs report, which will overshadow separate reports on the U.S. trade deficit and factory orders. <\/p>\n