Treasuries Finish Choppy Trading Day Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - Treasuries showed a lack of direction throughout much of the trading session on Tuesday before coming under pressure going into the close.

Bond prices move to the downside late in the day after spending much of the session lingering near the unchanged line. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, inched up by 1.6 basis points to 4.315 percent.

The late-day weakness among treasuries may reflected lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the release of a key inflation reading on Thursday.

The inflation data could have a notable impact on the outlook for interest rates, as Fed officials have said they need greater confidence inflation is slowing before cutting rates.

A report released by the Commerce Department this morning showed a substantial decrease by new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods saw a substantial decrease in the month of January.

The Commerce Department said durable goods orders plunged by 6.1 percent in January after falling by a revised 0.3 percent in December.

Economists had expected durable goods orders to tumble by 4.5 percent compared to the unchanged reading that had been reported for the previous month.

Excluding a steep drop in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders dipped by 0.3 percent in January after edging down by 0.1 percent in December. Ex-transportation orders were expected to rise by 0.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the Conference Board released a report showing an unexpected deterioration in U.S. consumer confidence in the month of February.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index slid to 106.7 in February from a downwardly revised 110.9 in January.

The decrease surprised economists, who had expected the consumer confidence index to inch up to 115.0 from the 114.8 originally reported for the previous month.

A revised reading on fourth quarter GDP may attract attention on Wednesday along with remarks by several Federal Reserve officials.