Treasuries Close Slightly Lower, Well Off Worst Levels

(RTTNews) - Treasuries saw modest weakness during trading on Friday but managed to end the session well off their worst levels of the day.

After showing an early move to the downside, bond prices regained some ground but remained stuck in the red. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose by nearly a basis point to 2.447 percent.

The early weakness among treasuries came following the release of a report from the Labor Department showing much stronger than expected job growth in the month of September.

The report said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 248,000 jobs in September compared to economist estimates for an increase of about 215,000 jobs.

Partly reflecting the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent in September from 6.1 percent in August, hitting its lowest level in over six years.

However, the drop by the unemployment rate was also partly due to another decrease in the size of the labor force, which fell by 97,000.

The Labor Department said the labor force participation rate edged down to 62.7 percent in September from 62.8 in August, hitting its lowest level since February of 1978.

Paul Dales, Senior U.S. Economist at Capital Economics, said, "The chances of the cyclical rebound in the participation rate that the Fed expects appear to be receding."

"At some point, the Fed may have to conclude that the unemployment rate is a reasonably accurate measure of the amount of slack," he added. "That said, it's odd that the tighter labor market has yet to generate any wage pressure."

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in August, while the Institute for Supply Management reported a modest slowdown in the pace of growth in the service sector in September.

While the past week saw the release of a slew of closely watched economic reports, data on jobless claims and import and export prices are among the few key statistics due be released next week.

Nonetheless, traders are also likely to keep an eye on the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting as well as speeches by a number of Fed officials.