Short-term Treasury yields rose Wednesday to their highest level in three months as investors awaited a key decision on U.S. interest rates by the Federal Open Market Committee, due in the afternoon.
Overnight, interest rates jumped across the world after the Bank of Japan surprised markets by launching a 10-year interest-rate target to step up its fight against deflation. The BOJ kept its deposit rate unchanged at negative 0.1%. But it said it would keep 10-year government bond-yields around zero, part of what analysts are calling “yield curve control.”
Japan’s 10-year sovereign bond yields hit 0% Wednesday, for the first time since March, before retreating back below zero.
In Europe, the yield on Germany’s 10-year bond known as the bund, gained 1.4 basis points to negative 0.001%, according to Tradeweb.
Treasury yields spiked after the news but then retreated to trade slightly higher on the day, as investors turned their focus to the upcoming Fed policy statement and a news conference by Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, but analysts will try to gauge whether a December interest-rate hike is still in the cards.
The yield on the two-year Treasury note , which is most sensitive to Fed rate changes, was up 2.9 basis points to 0.807%, according to Tradeweb, reaching its highest level since the June 23, the day of the U.K.’s vote to exit the European Union.Treasury yields rise when prices fall and vice versa. One basis point is equal to one-hundredth of a percentage point.
