Reuters
U.S. Treasuries gain on weak Ford car sales
Tuesday August 3, 1:08 pm ET
By Ellen Freilich
(Updates prices, comment after Ford auto sales)
NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury debt prices rose at midday on news that Ford (NYSE:F - News) vehicle sales were lower than expected in July, failing to rebound significantly from weak June results.
Traders are still waiting to hear results from General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - News), the world's largest automaker. On Tuesday, in an escalation of Detroit's incentives war, GM offered cash rebates of up to $2,500 on some of its 2005 models.
"Ford's results are on the disappointing side of expectations but GM remains the key for July, having led the way with incentives after their weak June results," said David Sloan, economist at 4Cast Ltd.
The benchmark 10-year note (US10YT=RR) rose 5/32, its yield at 4.43 percent.
Before the lift from news of weak vehicle sales, Treasuries had been little changed on news that U.S. personal spending fell in June, weaker than economists had predicted.
"Spending was down 0.7 percent, quite a bit weaker than expected, providing more confirmation of the economic pothole that we seemed to have hit in June," said Patrick Fearon, economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons.
Consumer spending drives about two-thirds of economic growth and a spending slowdown, if sustained, might tend to restrain the Federal Reserve's campaign to raise official interest rates.
But traders said the reaction to the data was muted both because the market had been persuaded by early economic data on July that June's lull was transitory.
"The very weak spending data didn't impact the market that much -- probably because the market's starting to look ahead to the third quarter," said Josh Stiles, senior bond strategist at IDEAglobal. "(Federal Reserve Chairman Alan) Greenspan already told Congress that he thought the June slowdown was a pause."
But Stiles said a big pickup in auto sales in July was necessary to keep the market convinced that slower economic activity in June was, indeed, just a pause.
"Part of any auto sales rebound will be due to the incentives that were reintroduced, but we need to see gains right away in July because of the weak jumping-off point in June," he said.
Early in the session, Treasuries clocked modest losses, unwinding the previous day's safety bid inspired by the latest warnings of a potential attack in the United States.
Barring such an event, trading is expected to occur in a tight range at least until the market sees the report on U.S. employment in July, due on Friday.
The median forecast in a Reuters poll foresees creation of about 228,000 jobs last month after a disappointing result for June.
Such a result would not please bond bulls, since they assume it would almost guarantee the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates when it meets in early August.
For now, two-year notes (US2YT=RR) were unchanged, their yield at 2.65 percent.
Five-year notes (US5YT=RR) rose 3/32, their yields easing to 3.64 percent from 3.67 percent on Monday.
Thirty-year bonds (US30YT=RR) rose 14/32, their yields easing to 5.16 percent from 5.19 percent.