by Rom Badilla, CFA – Bond Trader and BondSquawker:
U.S. Treasuries rallied today as the curve steepened, led by a decline in yields on the front-end. The yield on the 2-Year declined by almost 2 basis points to close the day at 1.05 percent. The belly outperformed the rest of the maturity spectrum as the yield on the 5-Year closed at 2.56 percent, a tightening of more than 2 basis points. The long-end of the curve see-sawed throughout the session and was unchanged for the day despite the news from across the Atlantic. The yield on the 10-Year and Long Bond ended the session at 3.81 and 4.67 percent, respectively.
In the first of four auctions slated for this week totaling $118 billion, the U.S. Treasury sold $11 billion of 5-Year Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS. Today’s auction drew a yield of 0.55 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio, which is a gauge of demand by investors, of 3.15. The average of the last five auctions had a bid-to-cover ratio at 2.44.
Tomorrow, the Treasury will sell off $44 billion of 2-year notes followed by auctions for the 5-Year on Wednesday, followed by the 7-Year on Thursday.
Stocks were down led by a decline in the financial sector. Shares of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs dropped by 5.1 and 3.4 percent, respectively. The S&P500 declined by 0.4 percent to 1212.05. The Volatility Index aka VIX ended 17.47, much higher from the previous close of 16.62.
![Cullen Roche](https://pragcap.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Headshot2022-1-144x144.png)
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.