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Reuters
U.S. Treasuries slip on tepid auction, Fed worries
Monday August 9, 3:46 pm ET
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
(Updates prices, changes byline)
NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury prices slipped on Monday as investors took profits on last week's rally and a sale of new three-year notes drew only modest demand.
High on the market's list of priorities was the Federal Reserve's policy meeting on Tuesday, with traders reluctant to make any major moves before hearing what the central bank had to say about a recent deterioration in economic data.
While most still expect the Fed to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point, a surprisingly weak July jobs report last week spurred speculation as to the future of the monetary tightening cycle.
"Everybody still thinks they're going to go (Tuesday), it would be a massive shock if they decided not to," said Gregg Cohen, a trader at CIBC World Markets.
"It will be interesting to see if their statement addresses the changing economic environment, which Greenspan tried to gloss over a couple of weeks ago. That'll be a little harder for him to do now," Cohen added.
In a milestone event for government debt, non-farm payrolls registered a meager increase of 32,000 in July, casting doubt over the prevailing view that a second-quarter slowdown in consumption and job growth was a passing phenomenon.
That prompted a massive retreat in yields -- over 20 basis points in the benchmark 10-year note -- to reflect the possibility that the central bank might slow the pace of interest rate hikes in the face of economic uncertainty.
On Monday afternoon, the benchmark 10-year note (US10YT=RR) lost 7/32, but that comes after a 1-15/32 jump on Friday in the wake of a poor July payrolls report. Likewise, its yield was at 4.25 percent, up from 4.22 percent late Friday, but still much lower than 4.41 percent on Thursday.
Tepid demand for $22 billion in new three-year notes left the market uncertain about the reception for the rest of this week's $51 billion refunding.
The current three-year note (US3YT=RR) was 3/32 lower in price, taking yields to 2.75 percent from 2.72 percent late on Friday. In when-issued trading, the new three-year paper had been yielding 2.85 percent just before the auction.
The new notes went at a high yield of 2.842 percent and drew bids for 2.02 times the amount on offer, just below May's 2.08 level.
Indirect bidders, including customers of primary dealers and foreign central banks, picked up just $7.93 billion, or 36 percent, of the issue. That was some way below May's 45 percent and a disappointment to traders.
Interest rate futures (0#FF
now show investors betting that rates will be at 2 percent or less by year-end and that the pace of tightening will slow further in 2005.
Two-year yields (US2YT=RR) rose to 2.44 percent from 2.39 percent late Friday. On Friday, they had fallen 23 basis points from the previous day's levels in the biggest one-day fall in almost a year, as traders began to mull the possibility of a less aggressive Fed.
Analysts at Merrill Lynch argue that the the entire Fed tightening cycle will peak at 2.5 percent next year.
"A cyclical downturn limits the degree of the Fed's interest rate 'renormalization' process," the analysts said in a research report.
They also looked for the yield curve to flatten. "We expect the 10-year yield, after an intermediate-term rise in yields, to retest the 4 percent level by late 2005," said Merrill's.