2018.12.1315:22:00UTC+00Treasuries Show A Lack Of Direction Before Closing Roughly Flat

After moving lower over the two previous sessions, treasuries showed a lack of direction throughout the trading day on Thursday.

Bond prices spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before closing roughly flat. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, inched up by less than a basis point to 2.911 percent.

While the ten-year yield crept only slightly higher, it still climbed further off the three-month closing low set last Friday.

The choppy trading on the day came as traders continued to express uncertainty about a potential long-term trade deal between the U.S. and China.

Traders seemed unfazed by a report from Reuters indicating some Chinese state-owned companies purchased U.S. soybeans for the first time in more than six months, which was seen as evidence China is making good on its pledges to the U.S.

Reuters also said China appears to be easing its high-tech industrial push, dubbed "Made in China 2025," which has long irked Washington.

Traders also shrugged off the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $16 billion worth of thirty-year bonds, which attracted average demand.

The thirty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 3.165 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.31, while the ten previous thirty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.30.

The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.

Today's thirty-year bond auction came after the Treasury sold $38 billion worth of three-year notes on Tuesday and $24 billion worth of ten-year notes on Wednesday.

On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing a much steeper than expected drop in initial jobless claims in the week ended December 8th.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 206,000, a decrease of 27,000 from the previous week's revised level of 233,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 225,000.

Jobless claims pulled back further off the nearly eight-month high reached two weeks ago to hit their lowest level in almost three months.

A separate report from the Labor Department showed import prices plunged by much more than expected in the month of November amid a steep drop in fuel prices.

The report said import prices plummeted by 1.6 percent in November after climbing by 0.5 percent in October. Economists had expected import prices to slump by 0.9 percent.

Additionally, the Labor Department said export prices tumbled by 0.9 percent in November following an upwardly revised 0.5 percent advance in October.

Export prices had been expected to edge down by 0.1 percent compared to the 0.4 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.

Economic data may attract attention on Friday, with traders likely to keep an eye on reports on retail sales and industrial production.