Treasuries Close Roughly Flat Ahead Of Slew Of Data

(RTTNews) - After an initial move to the downside, treasuries climbed back near the unchanged line over the course of morning trading on Thursday.

Bond prices spent the remainder of the day showing a lack of direction. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, inched up by less than a basis point to 2.197 percent.

The choppy trading seen for most of the session came as traders looked ahead to the release of a slew of U.S. economic data on Friday.

Traders are likely to keep a close eye on monthly reports on retail sales, industrial production, and consumer sentiment.

Meanwhile, traders largely shrugged off a Labor Department report showing a bigger than expected increase in consumer prices in the month of August.

The Labor Department said its consumer price index climbed by 0.4 percent in August after inching up by 0.1 percent in July. Economists had expected consumer prices to rise by 0.3 percent.

Excluding food and energy prices, the core consumer price index rose by 0.2 percent in August following a 0.1 percent uptick in the previous month. The increase in core prices matched economist estimates.

The annual rate of growth in consumer prices accelerated to 1.9 percent in August from 1.7 percent in July, although the annual growth in core consumer was prices was unchanged at 1.7 percent.

A separate report from the Labor Department showed an unexpected pullback in initial jobless claims in the week ended September 9th.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 284,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 298,000. The drop surprised economists, who had expected jobless claims to inch up to 300,000.