Tuesday | April 10, 2012

Last week was a rollercoaster for the Treasury market. On Tuesday, the Fed released minutes from the most recent Open Market Committee meeting that revealed less support among voting members for a new round of quantitative easing than many investors had assumed. The news sent bond prices falling, pushing the yield on 10-year Treasury notes up by 15 basis points to 2.30 percent. Over the next couple of days, bond prices slowly regained much of the ground they lost on Tuesday. When Friday's poor job growth numbers were released, bond prices jumped upward, overshooting prior-week levels by a large margin. The yield on 10-year notes fell by the most since December, closing the week at 2.06 percent.  Agency bullets slightly underperformed Treasuries last week, with spreads widening a touch in many areas of the curve.  The one and three-year areas of the curve were the strongest, where spreads were unchanged, while two, five and 10-year maturities widened by about a basis point. 

The information represented herein was obtained from various sources, which we believe to be reliable.  Neither the information presented nor opinions expressed constitutes an offer to buy or sell any security.  And it is not intended to guide the investor on which securities to buy, or when to buy or sell.