Bond yields steady ahead of data that could show continued payrolls slowdown

Bond yields were little changed Friday ahead of two key reports on the U.S. economy, including pivotal payrolls data.

What’s happening

  • The yield on the 2-year Treasury
    BX:TMUBMUSD02Y
    was 4.87%, down 0.5 basis points. Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.

  • The yield on the 10-year Treasury
    BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
    was 4.12%, up 0.5 basis points.

  • The yield on the 30-year Treasury
    BX:TMUBMUSD30Y
    was 4.23%, up 1.3 basis points.

What’s driving markets

The longer end of the curve saw a rough August, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury rising 13 basis points in August and the 30-year yield climbing 19 basis points.

Friday will see the release of nonfarm payrolls data at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, with expectations that 170,000 jobs were created in August. That would be the weakest showing since Dec. 2020, a month that saw 268,000 jobs lost.

“Given the market reaction to the JOLTS report, I sense there would be a disproportionate response to softer-than-expected data. It feels like the bias in the market still favors trying to game the first 100bp [basis points] points of rate cuts rather than the last 25bp of hikes. Indeed, although we have remained optimistic on growth, there has been almost a grudging acknowledgement of even the possibility that it will pull the Fed into another rate hike,” said Tim Duy, chief U.S. economist at SGH Macro Advisors.

He added a wildcard could be the Institute for Supply Management manufacturing data, due at 10 a.m. Eastern. “While markets expect more of the same ho-hum data, a break above 50 would be psychologically important,” Duy said.

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