Treasuries Close Modestly Lower Following Disappointing Auction

(RTTNews) - Treasuries saw modest weakness during trading on Wednesday, extending yesterday's drop on the heels of a disappointing ten-year note auction.

Bond prices showed a lack of direction for much of the day, sliding a little more firmly into the red following the release of the auction results. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged up by 1.2 basis points to 1.64 percent.

With the modest increase on the day, the ten-year yield added to the 7 basis point gain it posted on Tuesday to reach a new one-month closing high.

The modest weakness among treasuries came following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $24 billion worth of ten-year notes, which attracted below average demand.

The ten-year note auction drew a high yield of 1.68 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.49, while the ten previous ten-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 3.13.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at Miller Tabak, said, "Bottom line, Mario Draghi ended the U.S. Treasury rally dead in its tracks on July 26th when he temporarily calmed markets and that certainly carried over to today's auction."

"Looking out to the next few months, it will likely remain the Europeans driving U.S. bond yields either up or down much more so than any new incremental QE from the Fed," he added.

Finishing off this week's series of long-term securities auctions, the Treasury is due to sell $16 billion worth of thirty-year bonds on Thursday.

Trading on Thursday could also be impacted by the release of reports on the U.S. trade balance, weekly jobless claims, and wholesale inventories.

What are today's top 50 stocks? This free list will share the big market movers on a daily basis to help you find trading opportunities.

View this list for free now.

3 thoughts on “Treasuries Close Modestly Lower Following Disappointing Auction

  1. The huge corporate profits from buying labor overseas for ten cents on the dollar, while the manufacturing jobs are vanishing all over the US, will ultimately come to an end as electronically created dollars to support the purchasing habits of the American consumer and deficit spending by governments will ultimately backfire on everyone. Protectionism has always been a dirty word but the time is closing in when a large dose of such may be the only way out.
    Current policy is simply not sustainable. A wreckless Federal Reserve, Unfunded Obligations, Cap and Trade and Obamacare will likely push us right over the edge.

  2. I'm of the opinion that gross profit percentages are up giving rise to inflaton while the volume of these companies is down. Lean and mean also tells me that contributes to our unemployment. I believe that sooner or later there will be a drastic reaction.

  3. This earnings season has been interesting. I noticed the revenues are down but profit is up with most of the companies reporting. Companies are lien and mean, that is the only explenation I can think of and it fits right within the unemployment numbers as well as the over all economy in general. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Comments are closed.