Treasuries Finish Lackluster Trading Day Nearly Flat

(RTTNews) - Treasuries showed a lack of direction throughout much of the trading session on Monday before ending the day roughly flat.

Bond prices spent the day lingering near the unchanged line. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 1.696 percent.

The choppy trading on the day came as traders seemed reluctant to make any significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement later this week.

Following a two-day meeting beginning on Tuesday, the Fed is scheduled to announce its latest monetary policy decision Wednesday afternoon.

Recent soft economic data has led most analysts to predict that the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged, but the central bank could still surprise the markets.

On the U.S. economic front, the National Association of Home Builders released a report showing a jump in homebuilder confidence in the month of September.

The report said the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index surged up to 65 in September from a downwardly revised 59 in August.

Economists had expected the index to come in unchanged compared to the 60 originally reported for the previous month.

With the substantial increase, the housing market index reached its highest level since hitting a matching reading in October of 2015.

While trading activity may remain subdued on Tuesday as the Fed's two-day meeting gets underway, traders are likely to keep an eye on the Commerce Department's report on housing starts in August.