The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose above 2.9% on Tuesday as U.S. retail sales came in about as expected, and investors watched for clues on the path of monetary policy.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note last traded up 8 basis points to 2.955%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose 7 basis points to 3.149%. Yields move inversely to prices and 1 basis point is equal to 0.01%.
Treasurys
Those moves followed shortly after U.S. retail sales numbers came in about as expected. Consumer spending on retail rose 0.9% in April, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.6% in April.
Market participants on Tuesday are likely to monitor a flurry of Fed speeches. Most notably, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to comment on inflation at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival at around 2 p.m. ET.
On Monday, former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke said the U.S. central bank had made a mistake in waiting to address an inflation problem that has turned into the worst episode in U.S. financial history since the early 1980s.
Speaking to CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview that aired on Monday’s “Squawk Box” show, Bernanke said that he understood why the Jerome Powell-led central bank had delayed its inflation response but, in retrospect, this was an error.
Bernanke guided the Fed through the financial crisis that exploded in 2008 and presided over unprecedented monetary policy expansion.
Elsewhere, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans are all set to deliver remarks at separate events.
Industrial production figures rose 1.1% in April, better than consensus estimates of 0.5%.
Capacity utilization jumped 79% in April, about in line with consensus estimates of 78.5% on FactSet. Business inventories jumped 2% in March.
The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday will auction $34 billion in 52-week bills.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
Correction: Retail sales excluding autos rose 0.6% in April. A previous version of this story misstated the increase.
