U.S. Treasury yields declined on Tuesday as investors awaited key economic data slated for the week that will provide fresh insights into the state of the economy, including the labor market.
At 7:50 am ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was flat at 4.211%. The 2-year Treasury yield was last trading at 5.001% after falling by 3.8 basis points.
Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point is equal to 0.01%.
Investors braced themselves for a series of key economic data releases that will shed light on the latest developments around inflation and the labor market.
That includes JOLTS job openings figures for July on Tuesday, which will be followed by ADP’s employment change data on Wednesday and nonfarm payrolls on Friday. Before then, the personal consumption expenditures price index, which is the Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge, is expected to be published Thursday.
The data could inform the Fed’s next monetary policy moves, over which uncertainty has recently spread.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell suggested last week that further interest rate hikes could be on the horizon. Speaking at the central bank’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, Powell said that while inflation has fallen, it remains too high.
“We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective,” Powell said.
Many investors had been hoping that the Fed’s most recent rate hike in July marked the end, or near the end, of the central bank’s rate-hiking cycle, which began in March 2022 and aimed at bringing inflation back down to the Fed’s 2% target range and easing the economy.
