Treasury Yields Rebound From Post-Fed Plunge to Multi-Month Lows

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Yields on longer-dated Treasuries rebounded in the U.S. session Monday after collapsing to multi-month lows during Asia trading, with rates spurred higher as American stocks gained.

The yield on the benchmark 30-year bond ended the day up close to 10 basis points at around 2.11% after diving to 1.93%, a level unseen since February. The yield on the 10-year note, meanwhile, lurched from as little as 1.35% to almost 1.50%, one of the biggest intraday ranges this year. The S&P 500 was up more than 1% on the day.

The moves came even as short-end rates remained firmly anchored and little changed on the day, undoing a portion of the turbocharged curve flattening that had taken hold of markets in the wake of last week’s Federal Open Markets Committee meeting. That gathering saw policy makers bring forward their predictions for rate hikes, which helped to damp inflation expectations.

“Treasuries put in an extremely choppy performance,” wrote BMO Capital Markets strategist Ian Lyngen, noting that trading volumes were solid.

Up to 3 p.m. New York time, Treasury futures volumes were running 20% above 20-day average levels, concentrated in two-year futures.

Treasury yields plunged then rebounded

“It was a reflation retrace today, with the reflation trades that were unwound throughout Thursday and Friday reverting to some degree,” Natwest strategists including John Briggs wrote in a note to clients.

The day’s shifts received some support from comments by Fed policy makers in what is expected to be a busy week of appearances by officials, including Chair Jerome Powell’s visit to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday.

New York Fed President John Williams, meanwhile, said the economy is a ways off from “substantial further progress,” and his counterpart from St. Louis, James Bullard, said it seems unlikely that the central bank would raise rates while it is tapering bond purchases. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said he favors starting the process of tapering the central bank’s ongoing bond purchases “sooner rather than later.”

In prepared remarks released ahead of his testimony, Powell said inflation had picked up but should move back toward the U.S. central bank’s 2% target once supply imbalances resolve.