Treasuries Close Nearly Flat For Second Straight Day

(RTTNews) - Treasuries showed a lack of direction for the second consecutive session on Thursday before closing roughly flat once again.

Bond prices saw some volatility in early trading and spent the rest of the day lingering near the unchanged line. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 1.747 percent.

The choppy trading came as traders digested the European Central Bank's monetary policy decision as well as the latest U.S. economic news.

As was widely expected, the ECB announced its decision to leave interest rates unchanged and confirmed its monthly asset purchases of 80 billion euros are intended to run until the end of March 2017, or beyond, if necessary.

In his subsequent press conference, ECB President Mario Draghi said the risks to euro area growth outlook remain tilted to the downside.

Draghi claimed that the ECB's governing council did not have any discussions about tapering or extending its quantitative easing program.

On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing a bigger than expected increase in initial jobless claims in the week ended October 15th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims climbed to 260,000, an increase of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level of 247,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 250,000.

The revised figure for the previous week is up from 246,000 in the week ended October 1st, which represents the lowest number of claims since November of 1973.

A separate report from the National Association of Realtors showed a much bigger than expected rebound in existing home sales in the month of September.

NAR said existing home sales jumped by 3.2 percent to an annual rate of 5.47 million in September after falling by 1.5 percent to a downwardly revised rate of 5.30 million in August.

Economists had expected existing home sales to inch up by 0.4 percent to a rate of 5.35 million from the 5.33 million originally reported for the previous month.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department announced the details of next week's auctions of two-year, five-year, and seven-year notes.

The Treasury said it plans to sell $26 billion worth of two-year notes, $34 billion worth of five-year notes and $28 billion worth of seven-year notes.

Treasuries may continue to experience choppy trading on Friday amid a quiet day on the U.S. economic front.