JGBs trade sideways in silent session ahead of February retail sales, industrial production

The Japanese government bonds traded sideways Tuesday in a silent session amid lack of economically significant data. Investors are now eyeing the country’s retail sales and industrial production for the month of February, scheduled to be released on March 29 for detailed direction in the debt market.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, remained flat at 0.02 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year note also hovered around 0.74 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year too traded steady at -0.15 percent by 05:00 GMT.

The late session rebound in Wall Street came fast and furious, driving the S&P500 to its largest one-day jump since August 15, amid a turn in global risk sentiments on hopes that US-China negotiations would improve ongoing trade tensions. Meanwhile, UST bond drifted lower amid US$126b of auctions (with more to follow later this week) and month-end portfolio rebalancing.

Fed rhetoric also saw Mester toning down her hawkishness to opine that she had recently pared her unemployment rate estimate from 4.75 percent to 4.5 percent and “given the economy’s strength, we don’t want to get behind the curve, but we also don’t want to overreact to the positive outlook and potentially curtail the expansion”.

Meanwhile, the Nikkei 225 index jumped 2.23 percent to trade at 21,228.50 by 05:05 GMT, while at 05:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly JPY Strength Index remained slightly bearish at -88.35 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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