Treasury yields climb ahead of weekly jobless claims data
U.S. Treasury yields climbed early on Thursday, ahead of the release of weekly jobless claims data later in the morning.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose less a basis point to 1.475% at 3:50 a.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond advanced to 2.101%. Yields move inversely to prices.
The U.S. Labor Department is due to release the number of weekly jobless claims filed for the week ended June 26, at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting initial claims for unemployment totaled 390,000 last week, after totaling 411,000 for the week ended June 19.
The unemployment data comes one day ahead of Friday’s closely-watched jobs report. Economists expect 683,000 jobs were added in June, according to a Dow Jones survey.
Payroll firm ADP on Wednesday published the number of private payrolls added in June. It reported an increase 692,000 payrolls added in June, above the 600,000 expected by analysts.
Investors are watching jobs data closely to see if it prompts the Federal Reserve to consider tightening policy sooner than expected.
Michael Harris, the founder of Cribstone Strategic Macro, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday that he believed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s messaging about a stronger jobs market in a year’s time was an indication that there would be an interest rate hike next year.
“I think he’s moving towards a hike sooner than people expect, but I don’t think that’s a problem because the first hike is not going to be an issue,” Harris said.
“The issue is we have way too much stimulus because the current central bank stimulus was built to help the economy deal with absolute shock,” he added, arguing that economy was no longer in “absolute shock” so there was no reason why interest rates are where they currently stand.
Markit and ISM are due to published their final purchasing managers’ indexes for June at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Auctions are scheduled to be held on Thursday for $40 billion of 4-week bills and $40 billion of 8-week bills.
— CNBC’s Maggie Fitzgerald contributed to this market report.