Australian bonds jump amid trade war turmoil; U.S. Treasury yield curve continues inversion

The Australian government bonds jumped during Asian session Wednesday amid turmoil of ongoing risks of trade war while the U.S. Treasury yield curve continued inversion, indicating red signals of plausible recession.

The yield on Australia’s benchmark 10-year note, which moves inversely to its price, slumped nearly 3-1/2 basis points to 0.884 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year bond plunged 6 basis points to 1.489 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year slipped 1-1/2 basis points to 0.724 percent by 03:50GMT.

Markets were roughly in consolidation mode yesterday after the past two days of US-China turmoil. In China, there continues to be an uncomfortable non-confirmation that there have been recent high level talks between the country and the US on trade negotiations, despite President Trump declaring so on Monday, OCBC Treasury Research reported.

A Bloomberg report stated that only a few negotiators in Beijing think an agreement is possible before the 2020 US elections. The US Treasury yield curve continues to show inversion, with the 3m/30y, 3m/10y and the 2y/10y all inverted at the moment. 10-year yields fell below 1.50 percent to close at 1.47 percent yesterday, the lowest since July 2016, the report added.

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.61 percent to 6,459.00 by 03:55GMT.