Treasuries Move Modestly Higher After Last Friday's Slump

(RTTNews) - Following the notable weakness seen in the previous session, treasuries moved back to the upside during trading on Monday.

Bond prices gave back ground after an early advance but still ended the day modestly higher. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, dipped 1.2 basis points to 4.182 percent.

The initial strength among treasuries partly reflected bargain hunting following last Friday's slump, which came as comments by Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee partly offset some of the recent optimism about the outlook for interest rates.

Explaining his decision to vote against cutting interest rates at last week's Fed meeting in a post on the Chicago Fed website, Goolsbee said he is uneasy about "too heavily front-loading rate cuts and just assuming that inflation will be transitory."

Buying interest waned shortly after the start of trading, however, as traders looked ahead to the release of some key U.S. economic data in the coming days.

The monthly jobs report for November along with a report on retail sales in October are due to be released on Tuesday, while a report on consumer price inflation in November is scheduled to be released on Thursday.

The data could impact the outlook for interest rates following the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement last Wednesday.

While the Fed cut rates by another quarter point, as widely expected, officials' projections showed significant differences of opinion about further rate cuts.