U.S. Treasury yields ebbed lower on Wednesday morning, ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony in front of Congress later in the day.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 1 basis point to 1.407% at 4:20 a.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond dipped 1 basis point to 2.026%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Powell is due to give the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services his semiannual update on monetary policy at 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday. He is then set to speak in front of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs at 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday.
A Fed report released Friday, which Powell is due to present to Congress, reiterated the central bank’s position that the current inflationary pressures are “transitory.”
The Labor Department’s consumer price index report, released Tuesday, showed inflation had increased 5.4% in June on the previous year. That represented its biggest monthly gain since August 2008.
Dan Lacalle, chief economist at Tressis Gestion, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday that he was concerned about the “sticky parts” of inflation.
“If we look at the rise in non-replicable goods and services, they are much faster than what we see in the headline CPI,” he explained.
Lacalle was also concerned that central banks would “maintain the rhetoric and will maintain the view that inflation is transitory and it will not change their policy.”
The June producer price index, a more indirect gauge of inflation, is due to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
An auction will be held Wednesday for $30 billion of 119-day bills.
