SF: Treasury yields cling to multi-month lows after ADP
By Deborah Levine, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Short-term Treasury prices inched higher on Wednesday, pushing 2-year note yields toward the lowest in a year, after ADP said companies cut 169,000 jobs in November, compared to a 195,000 loss the previous month.
Yields on 2-year notes (UST2YR 0.68, +0.02, +2.71%) declined 1 basis point to 0.66%, after touching the lowest since last December. A basis point is 0.01%.
Yields on 10-year notes (UST10Y 3.31, +0.03, +0.82%) , which move inversely to prices, rose 1 basis point to 3.29%.
The number from ADP, which excludes government workers, was slightly worse than some economists had been expecting, but close enough to not encourage new predictions for the Labor Department's more important monthly payrolls report coming out on Friday. See more on ADP jobs data.
"The market could care less" about the ADP report, a strategist at CRT Capital Group said after the release.
The Labor Department's report in two days is forecast to show the economy lost 100,000 jobs, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
Ten-year note yields fell to the lowest since early October on Monday after concerns about Dubai's investments sparked a scramble for safer assets. Also, some fund managers tend to increase purchases of Treasurys at the end of each month to match benchmark indexes' addition of new securities sold during the month.
"The Treasury market still has a long way to go to relieve the overbought condition that developed into the month-end extension and after the Dubai news hit the tapes," strategists at RBS Securities wrote in a note.
At 2 p.m. Eastern time, the Federal Reserve will release its so-called Beige Book of anecdotes about the economy.