Treasury Yields Flat As Investors Anticipate Fed Meeting

Yields were essentially unchanged even as economic data on Tuesday showed higher-than-expected wholesale inflation. Producer prices jumped 0.8% for May, ahead of a Dow Jones estimate of 0.6%. On an annual basis, May’s Producer Price Index increased 6.6% — the largest 12-month increase on record since the data started in 2010.

A separate report showed retail sales fell 1.3% in May, greater than the 0.6% dip economists had projected.

The Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day policy meeting is set to conclude on Wednesday afternoon, followed by a press conference with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

The Fed is not expected to take any policy action in its meeting, though investors will be listening to Powell’s comments closely for any signals of the central bank’s eventual asset purchase tapering plans.

Tiffany Wilding, U.S. economist at PIMCO, said on Monday that the investment management firm expected the Fed to upgrade its outlook for growth and “materially revise up the inflation forecast” in its meeting.

“As a result of the better growth outlook, and despite the transitory nature of the inflation spike, we think the majority of Fed officials will also pull forward their projections for the first rate hike to 2023,” Wilding said, compared to a forecasted rate hike in March 2024.

Wilding added that PIMCO’s base case remained that the Fed would announce a tapering of bond purchases at its December meeting. However, she said that Powell could float the idea that the Fed might consider the possibility of tapering in September, if “inflation is more persistent than expected.”

— CNBC’s Maggie Fitzgerald contributed to this report.