Treasuries gave back ground after seeing initial strength but moved back to the upside over the course of the trading session on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Bond prices bounced back firmly into positive territory after pulling back near the unchanged line. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 4.5 basis points to 3.877 percent.<\/p>\n
The ten-year yield moved lower for the seventh time in the past eight sessions, falling to its lowest closing level in almost five months.<\/p>\n
Treasuries pulled back off their early highs following the release of a report from the Conference Board showing U.S. consumer confidence has improved by much more than anticipated in the month of December.<\/p>\n
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index jumped to 110.7 in December from a downwardly revised 101.0 in November.<\/p>\n
Economists had expected the consumer confidence index to rise to 103.4 from the 102.0 originally reported for the previous month.<\/p>\n
While the data partly offset the safe-haven appeal of bonds, buying interest remerged in afternoon trading amid ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department announced the results of this month’s auction of $13 billion worth of twenty-year bonds, revealing the sale attracted below average demand.<\/p>\n
The twenty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 4.213 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.55, while the ten previous twenty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.63.<\/p>\n
The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.<\/p>\n
Trading on Thursday may be impacted by reaction to a slew of U.S. economic data, including reports on weekly jobless claims, Philadelphia-area manufacturing activity and leading U.S. economic indicators. <\/p>\n