Treasury yields in focus investors await inflation data

The U.S. 10-year Treasury was little changed on Thursday as investors looked ahead to a key inflation report due on Friday.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury stood marginally lower at 3.839%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasury rose less than 1 basis point to 3.873%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions. One basis point equals 0.01%.

It comes as market participants await a fresh batch of economic data, with focus set to turn to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge on Friday.

The latest U.S. initial jobless claims data and second-quarter gross domestic product data are both scheduled to be published at around 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. Pending home sales figures for July are set to follow slightly later in the session.

U.S. personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, will be published on the last trading day of August. The reading could offer more clues on the outlook for interest rates. Federal Reserve officials use the PCE measure as their main baseline to gauge inflation.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said late last week that “the time has come for policy to adjust,” bolstering expectations for a rate cut at the central bank’s next meeting. Powell declined to provide exact indications on the timing or extent of the cut, however.

Market participants are firmly pricing in a rate cut at the Fed’s Sept. 18 meeting. Traders are currently pricing in a roughly 65.5% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut next month, with 34.5% pricing in a 50-basis-point rate cut, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.