US Debt Prices Fall Before Auction as Reports Signal Growth

Treasuries declined as data signaled the economic recovery is building momentum and the U.S. prepared to auction $35 billion of two-year securities.

Treasury 10-year note yields rose from almost a one-week low reached yesterday after Cyprus won a bailout imposing losses on bondholders. Data showed orders for U.S. durable goods rose more than forecast in February and residential real-estate prices climbed in January by the most since June 2006.

The U.S. economy “is still moving along in the right direction,” said Tom Simons, an economist in New York at Jefferies LLC, one of the 21 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve. “The pace of progress is somewhat modest.”

The benchmark 10-year note yield rose one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 1.93 percent at 9:11 a.m. New York time, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. The 2 percent note maturing in February 2023 fell 3/32, or 94 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 100 19/32. The yield touched 1.89 percent yesterday, the lowest since March 19, after climbing to 2.08 percent on March 8, the highest since April 2012.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities climbed 8.1 percent in January from the same month in 2012 after rising 6.8 percent in the year ended in December, the group said today in New York. The increase exceeded the 7.9 percent median forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Bookings for goods meant to last at least three years rose 5.7 percent, the most since September, after a 3.8 percent drop the prior month, a Commerce Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 3.9 percent advance. Figures on capital goods pointed to a pickup in business spending this quarter.

Bloomberg

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