Treasury yields slip as investors look to key jobs data in week ahead

Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point equals 0.01%.

Investors looked to key economic data that could provide fresh hints about the state of the economy and the monetary policy path.

This includes JOLTS job openings figures for April, as well as the May jobs report, which includes nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate for the month. ISM’s purchasing managers’ index reports for both the services and manufacturing sectors are also due this week, with the latter being slated for Monday.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank is set to meet Thursday and is widely expected to announce its first interest rate cut since 2019.

That comes ahead of the next Federal Reserve meeting on June 11-12. Traders are not pricing in a rate cut from the Fed until September, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, but will be watching the meeting closely for fresh hints about the outlook for monetary policy and the U.S. economy.

Investors on Monday also continued to digest Friday’s release of the personal consumption expenditures price index for April. The core PCE, which strips out food and energy costs, rose 0.2% on a monthly basis and 2.8% from a year earlier. The monthly figure was in line with expectations, while the annual reading came in 0.1 percentage points above the forecast.

Including food and energy costs, the PCE increased 0.3% from the previous month and 2.7% on an annual basis, as expected.