US Treasury prices rally

The US Treasury debt market rallied on Friday, with benchmark yields falling to six-week lows as investors flocked to government bonds from stocks and other risky assets on fresh subprime loan and credit worries.
Technically related buying also fuelled the gains, with bond bulls able to push through key yield levels on heightened anxiety that subprime mortgage losses would spread to other markets and eventually shave economic growth, analysts said.
"Clearly, we are closer to a credit and liquidity crisis," said Fidelio Tata, interest rate derivatives strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut. This skittishness and disappointing earnings from Caterpillar and Google led the major US stock indexes to each shed more than 1 percent, a day after the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 14,000 points for the first time.
Derivatives indexes like the subprime ABX index posted record lows, while spreads on interest rate swaps, seen as a gauge of risk appetite, widened two basis points to three basis points on the day.
Benchmark 10-year notes jumped 16/32 in price, offering a yield of 4.95 percent, down 7 basis points on the day and 14 basis points on the week. Yields, which move inversely from prices, posted their biggest one-week drop since March.
Shorter-dated maturities and interest rate futures had an even better day on improving prospects that the Federal Reserve may trim benchmark interest rates this year to counter protracted housing sector woes and problems in the subprime mortgage area, which caters to borrowers with poor credit.
US short-term rate futures suggested that traders priced a 28 percent chance of the Fed cutting rates by year-end, up from 14 percent a week ago. The effects of the US housing sector slowdown appeared to have spread to investments overseas, with a subprime-heavy Australian hedge fund running into trouble and Standard & Poor's downgrading a series of European debt pools.
Moreover, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned in his two-day testimony before Congress this week that persistent housing weakness would cut consumer spending and crimp overall growth. "Maybe this is going to force the Fed's hand to lower rates," said Clifford Gladson, senior vice president of fixed income investment at USAA Investment Management Co in San Antonio, Texas.
On Friday, Chicago Fed President Michael Moskow, who will retire in August, echoed Bernanke's view, but said at an event in Philadelphia that "on the whole the rest of the economy appears to be on solid footing."
Despite the Fed's assurance, many investors were defensive and preferred the safety of Treasuries over the potential of more losses in stocks and other risky assets, analysts said. Treasuries' strength was evident across the yield curve, with two-year Treasury notes gaining 4/32 in price for a 4.77 percent yield, its lowest level in two months, down 8 basis points from late Thursday.
The price on five-year Treasury debt rose 11/32 for a 4.84 percent yield, off 8 basis points from late Thursday while the price on the long bond gained 24/32 for a 5.06 percent yield, down 5 basis points from late Thursday.