US Treasury prices fell on Thursday as climbing stocks stifled any bid for lower-risk government debt, while expectations of a raft of new Treasuries debt supply added to selling pressure. Further evidence of an unlocking in short-term lending markets added to the bearish tone in bonds, as did data showing the US economy contracted less than expected in the third quarter.
Investors turned to higher-risk equities on Thursday and away from Treasuries in part on hopes that interest rate cuts from global central banks - including the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday - may help to stave off a prolonged recession.
"Again it is the equity trade, along with the knowledge that there is going to be lots of debt supply coming," said Mary Ann Hurley, vice president of fixed-income trading at D.A. Davidson & Co in Seattle. Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes traded 23/32 lower in price for a yield of 3.95 percent from 3.86 percent late on Wednesday. Yields, which move inversely to prices, rose to the highest in over a week. Two-year notes traded 1/32 lower for a yield of 1.57 percent from 1.55 percent.
"To a large extent what we have been seeing is a mirroring of the equity markets as the risk aversion trade drives a lot of the action," said John Canavan, market analyst at research company Stone & McCarthy in Princeton, New Jersey. Five-year notes traded 9/32 lower in price for a yield of 2.79 percent from 2.73 percent late on Wednesday, while 30-year bonds fell a full point to yield 4.30 percent from 4.24 percent.
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