US Treasury prices finish down

US Treasury debt prices eased on Wednesday as the Dow Jones industrials rose to a record high while strong data on business investment tempered the perception that the economy is softening.
Investors gravitated toward riskier assets like stocks, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average to an intraday record above 13,000 points, a fresh milestone for the blue chip gauge.
"The stock market is causing people to be more bullish on the economy in general, so through that, it does weigh on the Treasury market," said Adam Brown, co-head of US Treasury trading at Barclays Capital in New York. Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes traded 7/32 lower in price for a yield of 4.65 percent from 4.62 percent late on Tuesday. Bond yields and prices move inversely.
"Equity market strength has been a factor for Treasuries," said Matthew Moore, economic strategist with Banc of America Securities in New York. Earlier in the session, a report on US durable-goods orders encouraged the notion that business investment is healthy, offering a counterpoint to a weakening housing market and helping pull Treasury prices lower.
Tempering losses, however, was a report showing new-homes sales grew less than expected in March and inventories of unsold houses remained excessive. The news came a day after data showed the biggest monthly decline in sales of existing houses since 1989.
A fresh influx of new Treasury debt also left prices with little room to rise. Traders often try to cheapen bond prices ahead of debt auctions. Even though the sale of $18 billion of two-year notes on Wednesday afternoon was fairly well received, its influence on trade was minimal. Two-year notes traded 2/32 lower in price for a yield of 4.64 percent from 4.61 percent late on Tuesday.
A $13 billion sale of five-year Treasuries is scheduled for Thursday. Bonds trade was also unmoved by the release of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book summary of economic conditions, which said most regions experienced modest or moderate economic expansion, and that prices were generally stable or increased modestly.
"I didn't see anything in there that was surprising at all," Barclays' Brown said. "Moderate growth with inflation under control - these are the themes that the Fed has been talking about and looking at over the last six months."
Five-year debt traded 5/32 lower in price to yield 4.55 percent from 4.52 percent late on Tuesday, while thirty-year bonds were 13/32 lower to yield 4.84 percent from 4.81 percent.