German bunds flat as investors keenly eye Q4 GDP, eurozone’s 2-tier data

The German bunds remained flat during afternoon session Wednesday as investors reacted dull amid a slow trading day that witnessed data of little economic significance.

However, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the fourth quarter of 2019 is keenly eyed, due to be released on Valentine’s Day, along with a host of 2-tier economic data from the eurozone, including Q4 GDP, employment report and December trade balance data.

The German 10-year bond yield, which move inversely to its price, hovered around -0.377 percent, the long-term 30-year yield edged tad nearly 1 basis point up to 0.145 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year remained flat at -0.641 percent by 11:40GMT.

Fed Chair Powell in his semi-annual testimony yesterday re-highlighted that the US economy was in “a good place” and while the hurdle is high for them to move rates this year, they are watching the effects of the virus closely, Lloyds Bank reported.

Likewise, ECB speakers, along with President Lagarde defended negative rates and that further easing was possible if there was a significant effect on the Eurozone economies from the virus. Again, Lagarde pushed for fiscal spending to help, the report added.

"With the largest Eurozone economies showing output in the factory sector fell sharply in December, we look for the Eurozone as a whole to decline of 2.1 percent today and point to downside risks to Friday’s Q4 GDP growth update," Lloyds Bank further commented in the report.

Meanwhile, the German DAX traded tad 0.46 percent higher at 13,733.56 by 11:50GMT.