Australian bonds trade lower on hopes of U.S.-China trade talks; inflation expectations jumps to six-month high

The Australian government bonds traded lower on Thursday as markets are hopeful of a resolution from the U.S.-China trade talks scheduled to be held later today.

The yield on Australia’s benchmark 10-year note, which moves inversely to its price, climbed 1 basis point to 0.898 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year bond surged nearly 1-1/2 basis points to 1.497 percent while the yield on short-term 2-year traded flat at 0.638 percent by 05:15GMT.

Fed minutes from the September meeting suggested that members are increasingly divided rather than united in their views on the rate path ahead, but agreed they would soon need to discuss whether to increase its balance sheet size following the repo market volatility, OCBC treasury Research reported.

Meanwhile, optimism of a partial US-China trade deal continued to wax and wane on the back of a FT report that suggested China will offer to increase annual purchases of US agricultural goods by $10 billion and make changes to non-tariff barriers, whereas SCMP later reported that deputy-level trade talks saw no progress, the report added.

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 index slipped -0.40 percent to 6,528.50 by 05:20GMT.