Treasuries Close Nearly Flat After Ten-Year Note Auction

(RTTNews) - After seeing some weakness in morning trading, treasuries rebounded following a ten-year note auction to end the day roughly flat.

Bond prices moved roughly sideways going into the close, lingering near the unchanged line. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 1.988 percent.

The early weakness among treasuries partly reflected the recent downward momentum, with the ten-year yield reaching its highest intraday level in over a month.

However, traders seemed somewhat reluctant to make any significant moves amid uncertainty about the ongoing Greek debt negotiations.

Treasuries subsequently rebounded following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $24 billion worth of ten-year notes.

The ten-year note auction drew a high yield of 2.000 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.62, while the ten previous ten-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.70. The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "The positive was the yield, which was about 1 basis point below the when issued."

Following several quiet days on the U.S. economic front, trading on Thursday may be impacted by the release of reports on weekly jobless claims, retail sales, and business inventories.

Bond traders are also likely to keep an eye on the results of the Treasury's auction of $16 billion worth of thirty-year bonds.