Treasuries Recover From Early Weakness To Close Roughly Flat

(RTTNews) - After extending yesterday's slump early in the session, treasuries regained ground over the course of the trading day on Tuesday.

Bond prices climbed well off their early lows before ending the day little changed. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 4.591 percent.

Early in the session, the ten-year yield reached a high of 4.629 percent, marking its highest intraday level in almost seven months.

The recovery by treasuries came after the Treasury Department announced the results of this month's auction of $70 billion worth of five-year notes, which attracted average demand.

The ten-year note auction drew a high yield of 4.478 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.40, while the ten previous five-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.39.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

Overall trading activity was somewhat subdued, however, as many traders remained away from their desks ahead of the Christmas Day holiday on Wednesday.