SINGAPORE: U.S. Treasury yields edged higher on Thursday, as renewed hostilities in the Middle East sent oil prices surging and kept investors worried about the global outlook for inflation.
The two-year Treasury yield was up roughly 4 basis points to 4.0740%, while the 10-year yield rose nearly 5 bps to 4.5281%.
The moves came after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they targeted a U.S. airbase following what they described as an early morning U.S. attack near Bandar Abbas airport, while Kuwait's army separately said that its air defences were intercepting hostile missile and drone threats.
That threatened market optimism over a peace deal between Washington and Tehran.
Investors have been grappling with a resurgence in inflation across the globe as the three-month-old U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has triggered a prolonged spike in energy prices, prompting expectations of rate hikes across developed and emerging central banks this year.
"Markets are contending with a more complicated mix of inflation risk, fiscal supply pressure and still-resilient growth, and that is keeping term premia elevated," Fullerton Fund Management said.
A focus for investors will also be on U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) data due later in the day, which includes the Federal Reserve's preferred measures of inflation.
The inflationary pulse from fuel is expected to lift the headline PCE to a three-year high of 3.8%, while the core is forecast to rise an annual 3.3%, above the Fed's 2% target. - Reuters
