Treasuries Extend Yesterday's Strong Upward Move

(RTTNews) - Extending the strong upward move seen in the previous session, treasuries showed another notable advance during trading on Thursday.

Bond prices gave back some ground after an early rally but remained firmly positive. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid 8.8 basis points to 3.068 percent.

The ten-year yield closed lower for the fifth time in six sessions, ending the day at its lowest closing level in two weeks.

Treasuries continued to benefit from their appeal as a safe haven amid lingering concerns about a potential recession.

Traders kept an eye on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's before the House Financial Services Committee, with the Fed chief reiterating his commitment to moving expeditiously to bring inflation back down.

The Fed's plans to aggressively raise interest rates to combat inflation has led to concerns tighter monetary policy will tip the economy into a recession.

Powell has acknowledged that achieving a "soft landing" will be "very challenging" due in part to factors outside of the Fed's control and noted a recession is "certainly a possibility."

In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department released a report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits edged slightly lower in the week ended June 18th.

The report showed initial jobless claims dipped to 229,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level of 231,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 227,000 from the 229,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Trading on Friday may be impacted by reaction to a report on new home sales as well as a revised reading on consumer sentiment.