2021.04.2119:25:00UTC+00Treasuries Close Nearly Unchanged Following Choppy Trading Day

Treasuries showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Wednesday before ending the session nearly flat.

Bond prices spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, inched up by less than a basis point to 1.564 percent.

The choppy trading came amid another quiet day on the U.S. economic front following the avalanche of data seen to close out the previous week.

Looking ahead, trading on Thursday may be impacted by reaction to reports on weekly jobless claims and existing home sales.

Traders largely shrugged off the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $24 billion worth of twenty-year bonds, which attracted slightly above average demand. The twenty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 2.144 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.42, while the ten previous twenty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.37.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.