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10-year Treasury yield rises after Powell boosts expectations of Fed rate cut

Jerome Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, right, walks the grounds at the Jackson Hole economic symposium in Moran, Wyoming, US, on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield was slightly higher on Monday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week gave his strongest indication yet that rate cuts are near.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was 1 basis point higher at 3.816%, while the 2-year Treasury yield rose 2 basis points to 3.936%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions. One basis point equals 0.01%.

The 10-year yield slipped around 6 basis points on Friday, and the 2-year yield pulled back almost 10 basis points.

Last week, Powell bolstered already-high expectations for a rate cut at the central bank's next meeting, saying that "the time has come for policy to adjust."

"Inflation has declined significantly. The labor market is no longer overheated and conditions are now less tight than those that prevailed before the pandemic," Powell said in his hotly anticipated speech at the annual Jackson Hole symposium.

He did not, however, guarantee a cut at the Fed's Sept. 18 meeting, stressing that although "the direction of travel is clear … the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks."

Traders nevertheless remain dead set on a rate cut, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool, putting the chance of a quarter-percentage-point rate cut at 63.5%, and the chance of a half-point reduction at 36.5%.

— CNBC's Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

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