Treasuries Give Back Ground Amid Easing Concerns About Covid Variant

(RTTNews) - After moving sharply higher over the course of the previous session, treasuries gave back some ground during trading on Monday.

Bond prices climbed off their worst levels after an initial move to the downside but remained firmly negative. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, climbed 4.8 basis points to 1.530 percent.

The pullback by treasuries came after bond prices spiked last Friday in reaction to reports of the detection of a new coronavirus variant.

The new Covid variant, assigned the Greek letter omicron, has been labeled a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization.

The WHO described the global risk posed by the omicron variant as "very high" due to a high number of mutations that "may be associated with immune escape potential and higher transmissibility."

However, the South African doctor who treated early cases of the new variant told the BBC countries could be "panicking unnecessarily" and the symptoms she had seen were "extremely mild."

President Joe Biden also told reporters there is no need for the U.S. to reimpose lockdowns as a result of the new variant.

The U.S. has imposed travel restrictions on South Africa and several other African nations, although Biden said he doesn't expect addition restrictions.

In U.S. economic news, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing pending home sales rebounded by much more than expected in the month of October.

NAR said its pending home sales index spiked by 7.5 percent to 125.2 in October after tumbling by 2.4 percent to a revised 116.5 in September.

Economists had expected pending home sales to increase by 1.0 percent compared to the 2.3 percent slump originally reported for the previous month.

A pending home sale is one in which a contract was signed but not yet closed. Normally, it takes four to six weeks to close a contracted sale.

News regarding the covid variant may continue to attract attention on Tuesday, while traders are also likely to keep an eye on a report on consumer confidence and Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.