U.S. government debt prices were higher Thursday morning as investors seemingly paused for breath after a rally on Wall Street ended a three-day sell-off led by the tech industry.
At around 1:45 a.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was lower at 0.6935% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was down at 1.4459%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Equity markets bounced on Wednesday, halting consecutive days of losses driven by tech mega stocks Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Facebook and Tesla. This sent yields higher as the day progressed, but investors have returned to a state of apparent caution ahead of Thursday’s open, unsure as to whether the broader stock market rout will continue.
Investor focus Thursday will be on key jobless claims data, expected at 8:30 a.m. ET. Initial jobless claims for the week ended Sept. 5 are expected to hit 846,000, according to a Reuters poll, having beaten expectations to come in at 881,000 last week as the U.S. labor market continues to show signs of healing.
August’s Producer Price Index inflation data is also due at 8:30 a.m., before July’s wholesale inventories at 10 a.m.
The Senate will vote Thursday on a slimmed-down Republican coronavirus relief package, with discussions between the White House and top Democrats over a broader bill having hit a stalemate. Congressional Democrats have also voiced opposition to the new scaled-back proposal, expected to be worth around $500 billion, which would need seven votes from Democratic senators to pass.
The U.S. Treasury will auction $23 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday, along with $30 billion of 4-week bills and $35 billion of 8-week bills.
