Yields slip as investors move toward safe haven assets

NEW YORK, April 19 – US Treasury yields dipped from near five-month highs on Friday as investors moved toward safe haven assets in the wake of a presumed Israeli attack on Iran.

Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation, a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.

Easing concerns over a broad Middle East conflict will likely continue to pressure Treasuries, which have sold off for much of the week on worries that persistent inflation will prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates this year.

A number of Fed officials have said this week that they do not feel urgency to cut rates given the strength of the US economy and labor market. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told Fox News Channel late Thursday that he also wants to be “patient,” with the first rate cut “potentially” not appropriate until next year.

Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee joined the chorus on Friday.

“Given the strength of the labor market and progress on easing inflation seen over a longer arc, I believe the Fed’s current restrictive monetary policy is appropriate,” Goolsbee told a business journalism group in Chicago. “I think we have to recalibrate and we have to wait and see.”

Markets are now pricing in a total of 40 basis points in rate cuts by the end of the year, down from 48 at the start of the week and sharply lower than the more than 160 basis points in cuts expected at the start of January.

Continued conflict in the Middle East is likely to continue to push up inflation expectations, driving Treasury yields higher, said Thierry Wizman, global FX & rates strategist at Macquarie.

“A scenario of ongoing shadow wars, border wars, and limited wars may keep inflation expectations high and make the Fed’s job harder,” but not cause mass panic needed to drive a flight to safety that bond bulls would hope for,” he said.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was down 3 basis points at 4.617%. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell down 3.2 basis points to 4.713%.

The two-year US Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was down 1.5 basis points at 4.975%.

A closely watched part of the US Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at -35.5 basis points, down approximately 5 basis points from yesterday.

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Richard Chang, Cynthia Osterman, and Deepa Babington)