Treasuries Extend Pullback As Jobless Claims Drop More Than Expected

(RTTNews) - Treasuries showed a lack of direction in early trading on Thursday but slid more firmly into negative territory as the day progressed.

After spending the morning lingering near the unchanged, bond prices moved to the downside in afternoon trading. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose 2.7 basis points to 4.309 percent.

The ten-year yield added to the 2.6 basis point gain posted on Wednesday, climbing further off Tuesday's nearly one-month closing low.

The extended pullback by treasuries came following the release of jobs data indicating the U.S. war with Iran has not yet had a notable impact on the labor market.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to 207,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's revised level of 218,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 215,000 from the 219,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The bigger than expected decrease came a week after jobless claims jumped to their highest level since hitting 230,000 in the week ended February 7th.

"Initial claims have see-sawed over the last two weeks due to seasonal factors but remain at levels consistent with a low pace of layoffs," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.

Meanwhile, traders seemed to shrug off a separate report from the Federal Reserve showing industrial production in the U.S. unexpectedly decreased in the month of March.

The Fed said industrial production fell by 0.5 percent in March after climbing by 0.7 percent in February. Economists had expected industrial production to inch up by 0.1 percent compared to the 0.2 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.

The unexpected decrease in industrial production partly reflected significant pullbacks in utilities and mining output.