Following the rebound seen in the previous session, treasuries moved back to the downside during the trading day on Wednesday.
Bond prices came under pressure early in the session and remained in negative territory throughout the day. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, climbed by 3 basis points to 2.654 percent.
Treasuries remained in the red in afternoon trading as the Treasury Department’s auction of $34 billion worth of five-year notes attracted average demand.
The five-year note auction drew a high yield of 2.434 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.48, while the ten previous five-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.47.
The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.
On the U.S. economic front, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing a bigger than expected pullback in existing home sales in the month of December.
NAR said existing home sales tumbled by 3.6 percent to an annual rate of 5.57 million in December after jumping by 5.1 percent to a revised 5.78 million in November.
Economists had expected existing home sales to drop to a rate of 5.70 million from the 5.81 million originally reported for the previous month.
The bigger than expected decrease came after existing home sales jumped to highest rate in nearly eleven years in November.
“Existing sales concluded the year on a softer note, but they were guided higher these last 12 months by a multi-year streak of exceptional job growth, which ignited buyer demand,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.
Looking ahead, the Treasury is due to finish off this week’s series of long-term securities auctions with the sale of $28 billion worth of seven-year notes on Thursday.
Trading may also be impacted by reaction to reports on weekly jobless claims, new home sales, and leading economic indicators.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com
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