U.S. Treasury yields rose on Thursday morning, ahead of the release of data measuring economic growth in the first quarter and the number of new jobless claims filed last week.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note climbed to 1.65% at 4:15 a.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose to 2.318%. Yields move inversely to prices.
The U.S. Commerce Department is set to release first-quarter gross domestic product data at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.
The Labor Department is also due to release the number of new unemployment insurance claims filed last week at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones have forecasted that 528,000 new jobless claims were filed the week ended April 24.
The number of pending home sales in March is then set to come out at 10 a.m. ET.
Investors continued to digest the Federal Reserve’s latest policy decision to hold its benchmark interest rates near zero, following a two-day meeting that concluded on Wednesday afternoon.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in a press conference Wednesday, following the meeting, that it was “not time yet” for the central bank to start discussing any changes to its asset purchasing program.
He said it would still be “some time” before there was substantial progress in the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Thursday, TD Securities chief macro strategist Jim O’Sullivan said the Fed’s decision “wasn’t a big surprise.”
He didn’t believe the Fed would start to give any warnings of unwinding its easy policy “in the next meeting or the meeting after that,” with TD Securities forecasting that tapering could start to happen from March 2022.
An auction will be held Thursday for $40 billion of 4-week bills and $40 billion of 8-week bills.
