I expected to see something like this tonight....
U.S. Notes May Gain as Yields at One-Month High Spur Demand
By Wes Goodman
May 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury notes may rise for the first time in six days on speculation 10-year yields at their highest in a month will attract some investors.
The yield climbed to 4.76 percent yesterday, a level seen only three times in the past three months. Investors from Asia have tended to increase purchases as the yield approached 4.75 percent over the past few days, said Adam MacKillop, a U.S. fixed-income trader at Barclays Capital Japan Ltd. in Tokyo.
``As we get to the cheap end of the recent range, there is a lot of anticipation by dealers of money coming from this region,'' MacKillop said.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell 1 basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 4.75 percent at 11:26 a.m. in Singapore, according to bond broker Cantor Fitzgerald LP. The price of the 4.5 percent security due in May 2017 rose 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 98 2/32.
Yields, which move in the opposite direction to prices, rose yesterday in New York trading as signs of a strengthening in the economy eroded speculation the Federal Reserve will cut borrowing costs this year. The 10-year yield gained 8 basis points this week, the most since the start of April.
UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, revised its forecast for the Fed and expects the central bank to start a series of rate cuts in August instead of June, according to a research report from the firm today.
UBS, Pimco
Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund, said he had made a ``mistake'' in forecasting the central bank would start trimming borrowing costs by now, he said yesterday. Gross, who is chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, is sticking to his call that the Fed will lower borrowing costs this year.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his fellow policy makers have held their target for overnight bank lending at 5.25 percent since June, the highest in six years.
Takashi Furui, who helps run Japan's second-biggest bond fund at Daiwa Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, said a slowing in U.S. growth that brought the pace of expansion to the lowest in four years will curb inflation.
Furui started extending the duration of his U.S. holdings in May and plans to do more, predicting the 10-year yield will fall to 4.2 percent by year-end. Duration measures a portfolio's sensitivity to changes in interest rates, and a bigger number indicates a more bullish position.
The U.S. inflation rate, which was 2.3 percent in April as measured by consumer prices excluding food and energy costs, is poised to come down, he said.
``Inflation will fall to 2 percent by the end of this year,'' said Furui, one of the managers for the $14.5 billion Daiwa Global Bond Fund, the biggest in Japan after the Kokusai Global Sovereign Open fund in Tokyo. ``The economy is gradually slowing.''
To contact the reporters on this story: Wes Goodman in Singapore at
wgoodman@bloomberg.net ;
Last Updated: May 17, 2007 23:28 EDT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601009&sid=a1TTw38f4ssA&refer=bond