U.S. Treasury yields were slightly lower on Thursday as investors parsed further economic data and digested President Donald Trump’s latest tariff plans.
The 10-year Treasury yield slipped 3.2 basis points to 4.503%, while the 2-year Treasury pulled back less than 1 basis point to 4.272%.
One basis point is equal to 0.01%, and yields move inversely to prices.
On Thursday, investors digested the weekly initial jobless claims for the week of Feb. 15, which came in at 219,000. Economists polled by Dow Jones were looking for 215,000.
Meanwhile, investors are mulling over Trump’s most recent tariff suggestions, which include implementing a 25% duty on automobiles, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
Trump said the tariffs could “go very substantially higher over a course of a year,” and could start as early as April 2.
Meeting minutes released Wednesday showed that Fed officials said they would need to see inflation come down before cutting interest rates further, and were worried about how Trump’s tariffs could affect this.
“Participants indicated that, provided the economy remained near maximum employment, they would want to see further progress on inflation before making additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate,” they said.
They also pointed out “upside risks to the inflation outlook. In particular, participants cited the possible effects of potential changes in trade and immigration policy.”
Elsewhere on Thursday, the Conference Board said its Leading Economic Index unexpectedly contracted in January.
