Canadian bond prices were straddling the break-even level across the curve on Friday as dealers opted against putting too much stock in the employment data, which is widely considered to be a lagging indicator. "We are still at the turning point of the economy, which means you are going to get a lot mixed messages from the data," said Michael Gregory, senior economist BMO Capital Markets.
"So I think there is a general sense that you really can't put too much weight on one piece of information at this stage and that's probably, maybe, muting a little bit of the reaction to the jobs numbers today." The two-year bond was up 3 Canadian cents at C$99.68 to yield 1.4086 percent, while the 10-year bond fell 5 Canadian cents to C$101.70 to yield 3.538 percent. Canadian government bonds underperformed US issues at the long end of the curve, with the 10-year yield 2.4 basis points above its US counterpart, compared with less than one basis point above on Thursday.