Treasuries Close Moderately Higher Amid Focus On Draghi Comments

(RTTNews) - After ending the previous session roughly flat, treasuries moved moderately higher over the course of the trading day on Thursday.

Bond prices moved to the upside in morning trading and remained firmly positive throughout the session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, fell by 3 basis points to 2.257 percent.

The strength among treasuries came in reaction to remarks by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who spoke to reporters following the bank's decision to keep interest rates unchanged at record lows.

While Draghi reiterated that the ECB remains committed to providing additional stimulus if needed, some traders had anticipated that the bank would adopt quantitative easing today.

Draghi said the bank's Governing Council will wait until next quarter to reassess current stimulus and specifically called for an evaluation of the impact of the recent drop in oil prices.

The ECB president also said the bank's real GDP growth forecasts for 2014 through 2016 have been revised substantially downward and said the risks for the outlook remain on the downside.

The news out of Europe largely overshadowed a U.S. Labor Department report showing that initial jobless claims pulled back below 300,000 in the week ended November 29th.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 297,000, a decrease of 17,000 from the previous week's revised level of 314,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to pull back to 295,000.

The previous week marked the first time jobless claims topped the key 300,000 level since the week ended September 6th.

Friday morning, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched monthly jobs report for November.

Economists expect the report to show an increase of about 230,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 5.8 percent.

While the jobs report is likely to be in focus, traders will also be presented with reports on U.S. trade, factory orders, and consumer credit.