Treasury yields are little changed as investors await inflation data

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — fell 1 basis point to 4.688%.

Shorter- and longer-term yields also moved higher. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, which typically tracks short-term Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, was down by more than 1 basis point at 4.224%.

The 30-year Treasury yield, which is typically more sensitive to geopolitical events, slid less than 1 basis point to 5.238%.

One basis point equals 0.01%, or 1/100th of 1%, and yields and prices move inversely to one another.

Oil prices were last seen trading around the flatline after initially jumping Tuesday following Trump’s comments that the U.S. now has control of the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down slightly at around $82 per barrel, while Brent crude futures, the international price benchmark, fell a bit to roughly $87 per barrel.

Government bond yields finished Monday’s session higher, with both 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields up 4 basis points.

As markets digest Trump’s compensation demands and the impact of the latest Middle East developments on the inflation picture and the Fed’s interest rate path, traders are also awaiting more domestic economic data releases this week, particularly the core monthly and yearly inflation print for July due out Wednesday.

“CPI does set the stage,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “Either it’s as expected and contained or not and we’ll start to see the long end [of the Treasury curve] shift higher.”

Economists polled by Dow Jones are expecting the July CPI reading to record a 0.1% increase month over month, with the annual inflation rate coming in at 3.4%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, is expected to show a monthly increase of 0.2% and an annual rate of 2.5%.