US Treasury prices gained on safety buying on Wednesday after two opinion polls showed that the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union held a lead, a day before Thursday's membership referendum. Concerns about possible repercussions if Britain does vote to leave the EU has dominated trading this week, and overshadowed comments by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen during her semi-annual testimony to lawmakers in Washington.
Treasuries rallied after separate surveys by polling firm Opinum and market research firm TNS on Wednesday showed gains in the vote for Britain to leave the EU. "Most of the movement today came on the release of a couple of polls that suggested that 'Brexit' was a little more likely than 'Remain'," said Thomas Simons, a money market economist at Jefferies in New York.
Benchmark 10-year notes were last up 3/32 in price to yield 1.69 percent, down from 1.70 percent late Tuesday. Yields had fallen to an almost four-year low of 1.52 percent last Thursday as fears over a British exit from the EU accelerated, before retracing this week as some of these concerns ebbed. The safety bid may have helped the US Treasury sell $28 billion in seven-year notes to solid demand, the final sale of $88 billion in coupon-bearing supply this week.
The debt sold at a high yield of 1.497 percent, less than a basis point below where it had traded before the auction. It came after a $34 billion sale of five-year notes on Tuesday and a $26 billion sale of two-year notes on Monday saw relatively soft demand. A $5 billion sale of 30-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) was also strong on Wednesday with indirect bidders, which include fund managers and foreign central banks, buying their biggest ever share at an auction. The government also sold $13 billion in two-year floating-rate notes.
Yellen offered no new surprises on monetary policy her second day of testimony in Washington on Wednesday. She struck a relatively dovish tone on Tuesday, stating that global risks and a US hiring slowdown warrant a cautious approach to raising interest rates as the US central bank looks for confirmation that the country's economic recovery remains on track.