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Australian government bonds jumped during Asian session Wednesday after the United States counterpart fell back under 2 percent on renewed concerns over global economic growth that forced investors into safe-haven assets.
Investors’ anxiety heightened in Europe after the U.S. government earlier this week said that it will impose tariffs on additional $4 billion of euro zone goods in a long-running dispute over aircraft subsidies.
The yield on Australia’s benchmark 10-year note, which moves inversely to its price, plunged 4 basis points to 1.296 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year bond remained tad lower at 1.941 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year slumped nearly 3 basis points to 0.931 percent by 05:00GMT.
Wall Street managed to eke out modest gains overnight, pushing the S&P500 to another record, but the UST bond market also had a solid session with the 10-year yield dipping back below the 2 percent handle to 1.97 percent (lowest since November 2016). Oil prices also slipped amid renewed global demand concerns as the US reported a contraction in crude supplies, OCBC Treasury Research reported.
Fed’s Mester opined that “cutting rates at this juncture could reinforce negative sentiment about a deterioration in the outlook even if this is not the baseline view” and also “encourage financial imbalances given the current level of interest rates, which would be counterproductive”. She also warned “if you always react to the market, it is self-reinforcing and you’ll never get a signal” and “the most likely outcome continues to be that the economy will maintain its good performance in 2019”, the report added.
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 index remained tad 0.53 percent higher at 6,629.50 by 05:05GMT, while at 05:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly AUD Strength Index remained neutral at 44.80 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex
