Treasuries Close Nearly Unchanged After Choppy Trading Day

(RTTNews) - Following the holiday on Wednesday, treasuries showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading session on Thursday.

Bond prices spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before closing roughly flat. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 1.905 percent.

The choppy trading came as many traders remained away from their desks following the Christmas Day holiday and ahead of the New Year's Day holiday next Wednesday.

Traders largely shrugged off a Labor Department report showing a continued pullback in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended December 21st.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to 222,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level of 235,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to drop to 224,000 from the 234,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Jobless claims fell for the second straight week after reaching their highest level since September of 2017 in the week ended December 7th.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department revealed its auction of $32 billion worth of seven-year notes attracted modestly above average demand.

The seven-year note auction drew a high yield of 1.835 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.47, while the ten previous seven-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.42.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

The Treasury revealed earlier this week that its auction of $40 billion worth of two-year notes attracted below average demand, while its auction of $41 billion worth of five-year notes attracted above average demand.

Trading activity is likely to remain subdued on Friday, as traders stick to the sidelines amid a lack of major U.S. economic data.