Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries were little changed, after 10-year notes rose the most in almost four weeks yesterday, before government reports that may show orders for durable goods rebounded last month and new home sales rose. Five-year notes slipped as the government prepared to auction $41 billion of the securities today, the third offering in a record $123 billion of issuance this week. Two-year notes staged the biggest gain since March 18 yesterday after a sale of the debt drew the strongest demand since August 2007 and a report showed U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly fell. “The data is expected to come in on the positive side today, and there’s a technical factor after yesterday’s impressive gains,” said Marius Daheim, a senior fixed-income strategist in Munich at Bayerische Landesbank, Germany’s second- largest state-owned lender. The 10-year note yield rose less than 1 basis point to 3.46 percent as of 8:39 a.m. in London, according to BGCantor Market Data. The 3.625 percent security maturing in August 2019 declined 1/16, or 63 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 101 12/32. U.S. government debt handed investors a 0.5 percent loss so far in October, set for the first monthly decline since June, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s U.S. Treasury Master Index. The 10-year yield will increase to 3.54 percent by year-end and to 3.79 percent by the middle of 2010, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg, with the most recent predictions given the heaviest weightings. It will rise to 3.6 percent by the end of this year, according to Daheim. To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Brown in London at mbrown42@bloomberg.net; Wes Goodman in Singapore at wgoodman@bloomberg.net.

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