WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Following the pullback seen in the previous session, treasuries moved back to the upside during the trading day on Thursday.
Bond prices moved higher early in the session and remained firmly positive throughout the day. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, slid by 4.3 basis points to 2.712 percent.
The strength among treasuries was partly due to comments by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who told CNBC the U.S. is 'miles and miles' from a trade deal with China.
'Frankly, that shouldn't be too surprising,' Ross said in an interview on CNBC's 'Squawk Box,' noting the U.S. and China have 'lots and lots of issues.'
The comments from Ross come ahead of Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's trip to Washington next week for the next round of trade negotiations.
On the U.S. economic front, the Conference Board released a report showing a modest decrease by its index of leading U.S. economic indicators in the month of December.
The Conference Board said its leading economic index edged down by 0.1 percent in December after rising by 0.2 percent in November. The slight drop by the index matched economist estimates.
'The US LEI declined slightly in December and the recent moderation in the LEI suggests that the US economic growth rate may slow down this year,' said Ataman Ozyildirim, Director of Economic Research at the Conference Board.
He added, 'While the effects of the government shutdown are not yet reflected here, the LEI suggests that the economy could decelerate towards 2 percent growth by the end of 2019.'
Meanwhile, a separate repot from the Labor Department showed initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level in almost fifty years in the week ended January 19th.
The report said initial jobless claims slid to 199,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level of 212,000.
The drop surprised economists, who had expected jobless claims to rise to 220,000 from the 213,000 originally reported for the previous week.
With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 197,000 in November of 1969.
Trading may be somewhat subdued on Friday, as no major U.S. economic data will be released as a result of the ongoing government shutdown.
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