Treasuries Close Roughly Flat Following Lackluster Session

(RTTNews) - Treasuries turned in a lackluster performance throughout much of the trading day on Thursday before ending the session roughly flat.

Bond prices had a somewhat negative bias in morning trading but spent much of the afternoon 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 2.168 percent.

Treasuries saw some weakness early on following the release of a Commerce Department report showing much stronger than previously estimated U.S. economic growth in the second quarter.

The Commerce Department said real gross domestic product increased by 3.7 percent in the second quarter compared to the previously reported 2.3 percent growth.

With the upward revision, the pace of GDP growth in the second quarter was even stronger than the 3.2 percent jump expected by economists.

A separate report from the Labor Department also showed a modest decrease in initial jobless claims in the week ended August 22nd.

The National Association of Realtors also released a report showing that pending home sales rebounded less than expected in July.

However, treasuries climbed back near the unchanged line following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $29 billion worth of seven-year notes.

The seven-year note auction drew a high yield of 1.930 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.53, while the ten previous seven-year note auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.44.

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

Trading on Friday may be impacted by another batch of U.S. economic data, including reports on personal income and spending and consumer sentiment.