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More than a week after the U.S. government’s partial shutdown began on Oct. 1, bond-market traders were starting to express a greater degree of concern about the economic fallout.
Roughly a quarter of a million federal workers missed paychecks this week and another 2 million are expected to miss them next week if the shutdown continues, said Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York, citing
a report from Bloomberg. The impact on these workers and a continued void in U.S. economic data were among the factors being mentioned by various market participants during Friday’s trading session. In addition, a report from the University of Michigan showed Americans have soured on the prospects of finding new work and are frustrated by inflation.
The 10-year yield fell below its recent trading range of between 4.07% to 4.17%, and was, at one point, down by as much as 9.1 basis points to a session low of just below 4.06%. Before the yield touched Friday’s intraday low, Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities, said: “We are trending toward the bottom of that range on lots of uncertainty, given the lack of economic data. It’s hard for investors to have strong views” given a current lack of conviction.