Treasuries Close Roughly Flat After Early Rebound

(RTTNews) - After an initial move back to the upside, treasuries gave back ground over the course of the trading session on Wednesday.

Bond prices pulled back off their early highs and spent much of the day lingering near the unchanged line. The yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, ended the day flat at 4.796 percent after hitting a low of 4.768 percent.

The initial rebound from recent weakness came following the release of a report from payroll processor ADP showing weaker than expected private sector job growth.

ADP said private sector employment rose by 38,000 jobs in August after climbing by an upwardly revised 46,000 jobs in July.

Economists had expected private sector employment to grow by 48,000 jobs compared to the addition of 44,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

The modest increase in August reflected the slowest pace of job creation since private sector employers added just 11,000 jobs in January.

Traders may have been hopeful that signs of weakness in the labor market will lead the Federal Reserve to refrain from raising interest rates later this month even amid concerns about inflation.

However, buying interest waned over the course of the session, as crude oil prices recovered from an early pullback and moved to the upside as the day progressed.

After tumbling by as much as 1.4 percent, U.S. crude oil futures surged into positive territory and are currently up by about 0.6 percent.

The turnaround by crude oil prices comes amid lingering concerns about the potential re-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

Iran launched missile and drone attacks towards U.S.-linked sites in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait earlier today after the U.S. launched a wave of strikes against Iranian military targets on Tuesday.

The attacks by Iran came in defiance of a warning from U.S. Donald President Trump that any retaliation would see Iran "hit much harder" and that the U.S. is still holding out on "the biggest attack of them all."