Treasuries showed a notable move to the upside during trading on Wednesday, regaining ground after moving sharply lower in recent sessions.<\/p>\n
Bond prices showed a lack of direction in morning trading but climbed firmly into positive territory in the afternoon. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 5.2 basis points to 2.321 percent.<\/p>\n
The pullback on the day came after the ten-year yield ended the previous session at its highest closing level since May 2019.<\/p>\n
Treasuries benefited from their appeal as a safe haven amid lingering concerns about the ongoing war in Ukraine and a spike by the price of crude oil.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to impose further sanctions on Russia during his trip to Europe this week.<\/p>\n
Further buying interest was generated after the Treasury Department revealed this month’s auction of $16 billion worth of twenty-year bonds attracted well above average demand.<\/p>\n
The twenty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 2.651 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.72, while the ten previous twenty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.39.<\/p>\n
The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.<\/p>\n
In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report unexpectedly showing a continued decrease in new home sales in the month of February.<\/p>\n
The report showed new home sales slumped by 2.0 percent to an annual rate of 772,000 in February after plunging by 8.4 percent to a revised rate of 788,000 in January.<\/p>\n
The continued decline surprised economists, who had expected new home sales to jump by 1.1 percent to a rate of 810,000 from the 801,000 originally reported for the previous month.<\/p>\n
Trading on Thursday may be impacted by reaction to a pair of reports on durable goods orders and weekly jobless claims. <\/p>\n