Treasuries headed for a second weekly decline, making them the biggest losers among the world’s largest bond markets this month, on speculation an industry report today will show consumer confidence is rising. U.S. government securities maturing in more than a year have handed investors a 1.5 percent loss this month, the worst performance of 26 sovereign bond markets tracked by the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies and Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley, one of the 20 primary dealers required to bid at the government debt sales, recommended Treasury Inflation Protected Securities in a report. “The momentum for yields to push higher is very strong,” said Zeal Yin, who helps oversee the equivalent of $51.8 billion as an investor at Shin Kong Life Insurance Co., Taiwan’s second- largest life insurer. “The U.S. economic data are very good.” Ten-year Treasuries yielded 3.70 percent as of 1:48 p.m. in Singapore, according to BGCantor Market Data. The 3.625 percent note due in February 2021 traded at a price of 99 11/32. Ten- year yields increased seven basis points this week. Shin Kong Life holds fewer Treasuries than the percentage in the benchmark it uses to gauge performance, Yin said. Financial markets were closed in Japan for a holiday. Treasury futures contracts, the dollar and the Swiss franc rose as protests in Egypt and a decline in Asian stocks boosted demand for safer assets. President Hosni Mubarak defied calls for his immediate resignation as thousands of people crammed into central Cairo. Ten-year futures advanced 5/32, or $1.56 per $1,000 face amount, to 118 9/32. The dollar and the franc each strengthened 0.2 percent against the euro. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of shares slid 0.9 percent, dropping for a third day. Nine-Month High Treasuries are starting to become attractive after the 10- year yield climbed to a nine-month high earlier in the week, said Chungkeun Oh, a fixed-income trader in Seoul at Industrial Bank of Korea, South Korea’s largest lender to small and mid- sized companies. “The U.S. economy is still patchy,” Oh said. He plans to buy 10-year notes if the yield rises to another five basis points 3.75 percent, he said. A basis point equals 0.01 percentage point. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to purchase $6 billion to $8 billion of Treasuries due from August 2016 to January 2018 today as part of its plan to sustain the economic expansion, according to its website. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 75 this month from 74.2 in January, according to a Bloomberg survey before the report today. First-time claims for jobless insurance fell to the lowest since July 2008, the Labor Department said yesterday. General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, may award some managers bonuses of as much as 50 percent of their salary, three people familiar with the plans said. Quicker Inflation Core inflation has bottomed and will move gradually higher this year,” Morgan Stanley said in a report yesterday by strategists Anton Heese, Igor Cashyn and Rachael Featherstone. Short-maturity TIPS offer the best value, they wrote. So-called core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, increased 0.8 percent in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Jan. 14. The gain was 0.6 percent in October, a record low based on figures that start in 1958. TIPS have fallen 2.1 percent in February, headed for their steepest loss since October 2008, indexes compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch show. That same month credit markets froze following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Wider Spread The difference between yields on five-year notes and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, a gauge of trader expectations for consumer prices over the life of the securities, widened to 2 percentage points. It was the most in nine months based on closing levels. Treasuries fell yesterday after the U.S. sold $16 billion of 30-year bonds, the last of three auctions this week totaling $72 billion of debt. “The bias seems to be towards higher rates now with economic numbers generally coming in better than expected,” said Larry Milstein, managing director in New York of government debt trading at R.W. Pressprich & Co., a fixed-income broker and dealer for institutional investors. “People are getting defensive and positioning themselves for higher rates.” To contact the reporter on this story: Wes Goodman in Singapore at wgoodman@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nicholas Reynolds at nreynolds2@bloomberg.net

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