U.S. Treasury yields saw little movement on Wednesday morning, after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated in a congressional testimony that inflation pressures would be temporary.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note stood at 1.472% at 4:15 a.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell slightly to 2.102%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Speaking in front of a House panel on Tuesday, Powell continued to attribute most of the recent jump in inflation to factors closely tied to the economic reopening.
He said it was “very, very unlikely” that the U.S. would see a repeat of 1970s-style inflation.
Bob Parker, investment committee member at Quilvest Wealth Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday that he believed “we are going to get a period of significantly higher inflation.” He expected headline inflation to remain between 4%-5% and core inflation to be close to 4%, but believed this would “ease off as we go into early next year.”
However, Parker added that “we could end up with a period of core inflation closer to 3% rather than the 2% that the Federal Reserve and Jay Powell are forecasting.”
On Wednesday, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman is due to make a speech on community development and economic resilience at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s 2021 policy summit, at 9:10 a.m. ET.
On the data front, the Markit flash purchasing managers’ index for June is set to be released at 8:45 a.m. ET.
May’s new home sales data is then set to come out at 10 a.m. ET.
Auctions are due to be held Wednesday for $35 billion of 119-day bills, $61 billion of 5-year notes and $26 billion of 2-year floating-rate notes.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this market report.
