Treasuries Extend Upward Trend With Moderately Higher Close

(RTTNews) - After initially showing a lack of direction, treasuries moved moderately higher over the course of the trading day on Thursday.

Bond prices move to the upside as the day progressed, extending a recent upward trend. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, fell by 2.9 basis points to 2.672 percent.

The strength among treasuries came on the heels of the release of a mixed batch of U.S. economic data, including reports on weekly jobless claims and pending home sales.

The Labor Department released a report early in the day showing that initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell to a nearly four-month low last week.

The report showed that initial jobless claims fell to 311,000 in the week ended March 22nd, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 321,000.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors recently released a report showing that pending home sales fell for the eighth straight month in February.

NAR said its pending home sales index dropped by 0.8 percent to 93.9 in February after edging down by 0.2 percent to a downwardly revised 94.7 in January. The drop pulled the index down to its lowest level since hitting 92.2 in October of 2011.

The Commerce Department also released a report showing an upward revision to fourth quarter GDP growth, although the data was largely shrugged off as old news.

Treasuries saw continued strength following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $29 billion worth of seven-year notes, which attracted average demand.

The seven-year note auction drew a high yield of 2.258 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.59, while the ten previous seven-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.56.

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

Today's seven-year note auction came after the Treasury sold $32 billion worth of two-year notes on Tuesday and $35 billion worth of five-year notes on Wednesday.

Trading on Friday may be impacted by the release of another batch of U.S. economic data, including reports on personal income and spending and consumer sentiment.