While you were sleeping: Bond yields climb

Friday 2nd December 2016

Yields on US Treasuries climbed and Wall Street was mixed, as energy and bank stocks rose while tech stocks slid, amid bets that economic growth will accelerate.

Oil prices continued their rally following a deal to curb output.

In 1.18pm trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3 percent. However, the Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 1.3 percent. In 1.03pm trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.4 percent.

The Dow moved higher with gains in shares of Chevron and those of Goldman Sachs, recently up 2.8 percent and 2.1 percent respectively. Shares of Microsoft and those of Visa posted the biggest percentage declines in the Dow, trading 2.1 percent and 2 percent weaker respectively in early afternoon in New York.

Slides in tech stocks—seen as benefiting less from anticipated spending boosts and deregulation under US President-elect Donald Trump—including Microsoft and Facebook, the latter down 3 percent as of 1.21pm in New York, weighed on a market that’s trading near record highs.

While the US Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise its target interest rate at this month’s meeting, investors will scrutinise Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report to gauge the timing of additional hikes. It’s expected to show that US employers added 180,000 workers, while the unemployment rate held at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent, according to a Bloomberg poll.

On Thursday, a Labour Department report showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 for the week ended November 26.

Separately, an Institute for Supply Management report showed its index of national factory activity added 1.3 percentage points to a reading of 53.2 in November, the highest level since June.

"The factory sector has started to show some building momentum, strengthening the case for Federal Reserve action at the December policy meeting," Kevin Cummins, senior economist at RBS in Stamford, Connecticut, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, US Treasuries dropped, pushing yields on the 10-year note 11 basis points higher to 2.49 percent at 12.45pm in New York. It touched the highest level since July 2015. Yields on the 10-year note climbed 56 basis points in the month of November, according to Bloomberg.

“The market has moved with remarkable swiftness to price in the anticipated reflationary impact of a Trump administration,” Matthew Cairns, a strategist at Rabobank International in London, told Bloomberg. “This has, in turn, prompted a notable rotation out of fixed income and into equities.”

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a 0.3 percent decline from the previous close. France’s CAC 40 Index slid 0.4 percent, the UK’s FTSE 100 Index fell 0.5 percent and Germany’s DAX Index dropped 1 percent.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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