U.S., treasury yields edged higher on Thursday as investors await a key unemployment report on Friday. This comes after revised data for Americans seeking unemployment benefits showed a weaker yet still strong labor market in the U.S.
For the week ended April 1, initial claims for state unemployment benefits stood at 228,000; a decline of 18,000. Data was later revised to show 48,000 more applications received.
“It’s a constant push-pull between people who think that the economy is going to be OK and a group that thinks that the Fed has to stop raising rates and needs to cut multiple times this year and get down to significantly lower rates,” said Tom Simmons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co in New York. According to Simmons, observers disagree on the strength of the labor market due to the recent data.
On Thursday, the two-year Treasury yield gained 6 basis points to 3.823%, while the 10-year Treasury yield rose 0.7 basis points to 3.294%.