29.03.2024

Bond Report: 30-year yield lowest in six weeks as tax bill uncertainty builds

Treasury yields mostly fell on Tuesday as investors cast doubt on how much of the initial tax legislation introduced by House Republicans last week would survive as the bill moves through Congress.

What are yields doing?

The 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.00% was down a basis point to 2.309%. The 2-year note yield TMUBMUSD02Y, +1.01% rose a basis point to 1.629%, a fresh 9-year high. While, the 30-year bond yield TMUBMUSD30Y, -0.57% fell 2.3 basis points to 2.772%, the lowest since Sep. 26.

Bond prices move in the opposite direction of yields.

What’s driving Treasurys?

The Republican tax bill continued to dominate headlines. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said the bill would face a floor vote next week, Reuters reported. Bondholders are worried tax cuts will widen the budget deficit and increase the amount of new issuance hitting the market next year, weighing on prices. Fitch Ratings said the tax overhaul would help push U.S.’s debt-to-GDP ratio to 120% by 2027 versus 103% in the second-quarter of 2017.

But some analysts say investors will only start to assess the impact of tax bill once they feel the piece of legislation has been fully molded.

What did market participants say?

“Given the difficulties we anticipate with the legislative process, none of these proposals is likely anywhere close to its final form-making it unlikely that rates markets will begin to price potential impacts any time soon”, wrote fixed-income strategists for Credit Suisse.

“The markets are starting to sense tax reform may be a bit back-burnered for year-end. The timetable looks a bit too ambitious for one thing and the guts of the reform are not what the markets were looking for”, noted Tom di Galoma, managing director of Treasurys trading at Seaport Global Securities.

What else is on investors’ radar?

  • Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said that ethical behavior and transparency was necessary for the central bank to convince the public that policy makers were working in their interest.
  • The number of job openings in the U.S. rose to 6.09 million in September, close to a record high. The tight labor market, however, has had little impact on wage growth and inflation, so far.
  • European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said there was “little evidence” that negative interest rate policies were crimping bank profits.

What are other assets doing?

Italian and Spanish government bond yields fell as after recent data from the European Central Bank showed the tapering of its bond-buying program wouldn’t be as aggressive as earlier thought. Data on Monday showed that once investors included reinvestments of maturing securities. In the 12 months from November, 10.8 billion euros will roll off its balance sheet every month.

The Italian 10-year yield TMBMKIT-10Y, -4.35% fell 8.3 basis points to 1.697%, while the Spanish 10-year yield TMBMKES-10Y, -3.55% fell 5.7 basis points to 1.409%.

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