U.S. Treasuries tad higher ahead of weekly initial jobless claims, FOMC member Brainard’s speech

The U.S. Treasuries traded tad higher during afternoon session Wednesday ahead of the country’s weekly initial jobless claims data, scheduled to be released today by 13:30GMT, besides, the Q4 non-farm productivity, also due today.

Also, the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) member Lael Brainard will be delivering a keynote speech at 17:15GMT today, which shall guide debt markets thoroughly.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield slipped nearly 1 basis point to 2.684 percent, the super-long 30-year bond yields remained tad lower at 3.065 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year traded nearly 1-1/2 basis points lower at 2.508 percent by 12:10GMT.

Despite more reports indicating that President Trump is keen to progress a trade deal with China and a generally positive Beige Book from the Fed, Wall Street struggled yesterday with the S&P500 eventually closing down 0.65 percent, Daiwa Capital Markets reported.

The 10-year Treasury yield fell, as NY Fed President Williams restated the FOMC’s ‘patience’ mantra, and following the decline in European bond yields that followed the newswire reports suggesting (predictably) that the scale of downward revisions to the ECB’s GDP and inflation forecasts – to be released today – would justify a further LTRO this year (albeit with the detail not necessarily to be announced at today’s Governing Council meeting). It remains to be seen, however, whether the ECB’s forward rate guidance will be revised, although Draghi should certainly be in dovish mode today, the report added.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Futures edged tad lower to 2,767.62 by 12:15GMT, while at 12:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Dollar Strength Index remained highly bullish at 100.95 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex