Treasuries moved notably lower over the course of the trading day on Thursday, extending the downward move seen over the past few sessions.
After seeing initial weakness, bond prices regained some ground in early afternoon trading but pulled back sharply going into the close. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose by 5.3 basis points to 1.813 percent.
With the increase on the day, the ten-year yield more than offset the modest increase seen on Wednesday, reaching its highest closing level in a month.
The weakness among treasuries was partly due to the release of a report from the Labor Department showing that initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell to a new five-year low in the week ended May 4th.
The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 323,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 327,000.
The drop in jobless claims surprised economists, who had expected claims to climb to 335,000 from the 324,000 originally reported for the previous week.
With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 321,000 in the week ended January 19, 2008.
After an early afternoon recovery attempt, treasuries moved back to the downside following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $16 billion worth of thirty-year bonds
The thirty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 2.98 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.53, while the ten previous thirty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.60.
The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.
With no major U.S. economic data scheduled to be released on Friday, traders are likely to keep a close eye on comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who is due to speak at the Chicago Fed banking conference.
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Market Analysis
June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.