US Treasury bonds are soaring after the Federal Reserve hiked its key interest rate to a range of 0.75% to 1% at Wednesday's meeting. The rate hike is the third by the Fed since December 2015 and has the central bank on a path to meet its target of three rate hikes by the end of the year.
"Hikes are generally bad for stocks, somewhat bad for the US dollar, and bullish for 10-year yields and commodities," Tom Leveroni and Shourui Tian of Nautilus Research wrote in a note to clients sent out on Wednesday.
Aggressive buying across the complex is having the biggest impact on the belly of the curve, with yields there down as much as 8 basis points. Here's a look at the scoreboard as of 2:15 p.m. ET:
- 2-year -5.3 bps @ 1.324%
- 3-year -6.7 bps @ 1.617%
- 5-year -8.0 bps @ 2.048%
- 7-year -7.9 bps @ 2.340%
- 10-year -6.6 bps @ 2.535%
- 30-year -4.8 bps @ 3.127%
Wednesday's buying has pushed yields off their recent highs. The 10-year yield put in a high of almost 2.63% on Tuesday, falling just 1bp below its December 15 peak.
Interestingly, the rate hike is causing the yield curve to steepen with the 5-30-year spread wider by more than 4 bps at 109 bps.
