NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Precious metals steadied on Wednesday after futures of gold, and particularly silver, plunged in the previous session’s after-hours trade, although the dollar’s strength limited any immediate recovery.

The price of spot gold, which tracks trades in bullion, was up about half percent. Futures of the precious metal in New York showed a loss of up to 1.4 percent during the session, adjusting to Tuesday’s post-settlement trade.

Spot silver was also steady, while U.S. futures showed a 7 percent drop, its biggest loss in two years.

The dollar gained against the euro amid fresh concerns over euro zone sovereign debt levels. Data showing a four-month low in U.S. jobless claims — a sign of labor market improvement — also strengthened the greenback and weighed on gold and silver prices, said Bruce Dunn, vice president of trading with Auramet Trading.

Spot gold hovered at around $1,395, versus about $1,392 in New York late on Tuesday.

“In general the market is following through with the hike in margins by the CME yesterday afternoon,” which contributed to a fall of silver and gold prices, said Tom Pawlicki, precious metals and energy analyst with MF Global in Chicago. A firmer dollar also weighed on gold and silver on Wednesday, he said.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery were down more than $15 an ounce to nearly $1,395 by 12:55 p.m. EST (1755 GMT) on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Commodities seem certain to rise this week, analysts say, as the impact of a disappointing injection of cash from the Federal Reserve would be more than offset by increasingly upbeat fundamental factors.

Commodity and forex markets expectations range from $250 billion to $2 trillion of bond purchases by the Fed in a second round of quantitative easing. Traders are bracing for a quick rise in the dollar — and commensurate fall in commodities — if the Fed takes a less aggressive approach.

The dollar has lost about 7 percent against a basket of currencies .DXY over the past two months on speculation that the Fed will commence so-called QE2, as signaled by Chairman Ben Bernanke on Aug 27.

A knee-jerk bounce in the dollar could weigh on prices, though. The 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index .CRB has jumped 14 percent since Aug 27 as the weaker dollar made commodities priced in dollars cheaper for investors holding other currencies. A weak dollar also boosts inflation.

After the Federal Reserve voted to implement its first round of quantitative easing in late 2008, the CRB fell 8 percent by February. But that was right after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered global financial panic. In the ensuing months, the CRB rose and finished 2009 up 23 percent.

However commodities react to the Fed on Wednesday, focus is likely to return by the end of the week to core supply-demand factors that have been largely bullish over the last quarter.

If the Fed eases less aggressively than expected, oil, metals and grains prices could fall. Even so, markets such as cotton, sugar, coffee and cocoa prices may show muted impact due to bullish crop, supply and demand conditions now.

NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – PIMCO, the world’s biggest bond fund management company, favors high-quality corporate bonds issued by U.S. banks and emerging market debt in the energy and metals sectors, it said on Monday.

Senior debt of select U.S. banks should fare well, even against a backdrop of slow economic growth in developed countries, Mark Kiesel, head of the corporate bond portfolio management group at PIMCO, Pacific Investment Management Co, wrote in an article posted on the company’s website.

The debt of gas and crude oil pipeline operating companies with steady cash flow and low debt burdens should also weather a weak economy well, he said.

Investors should “emphasize noncyclical and defensive sectors and expand their holdings in asset-rich industries that derive a large portion of their revenue from faster-growing emerging economies,” Kiesel wrote.

Investment-grade emerging market corporate bonds in energy, metal and other infrastructure areas yield between about 4.75 percent and 6 percent, some 100 basis points more than equivalent companies’ bonds in the United States that are similarly rated, Kiesel wrote.

“Given improving credit fundamentals, supportive technicals and attractive valuations, we continue to favor investments in emerging market corporate bonds,” he wrote.

Overall, new regulations such as the Basel III capital rules should strengthen the global financial system, Kiesel wrote. But he urged caution on picking bank bonds.

NEW YORK, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Treasury debt prices slipped on Wednesday as the market braced for a $21 billion auction of benchmark notes and concerns eased about European debt, curbing demand for safe-haven U.S. government bonds.

Despite a strong 3-year Treasury note auction on Tuesday which produced a record-low yield, analysts said the upcoming 10-year note sale might not meet with such robust demand.

Gains in U.S. stocks further undercut Treasuries demand.

Treasuries’ losses were limited early on as concerns about European banks helped demand for safe-haven U.S. government bonds. On Tuesday, those concerns had helped benchmark Treasury yields fall back from last week’s three-week highs.

But on Wednesday, there was some relief about highly indebted European countries, after Portugal managed to sell debt, albeit at much higher yields than in a similar sale two weeks before. See [ID:nLDE687156].

“Some of the concern over the sovereign debt crisis in Europe has eased with the successful sale by Portugal,” which weighed on Treasuries prices, said Mary Ann Hurley, senior Treasuries trader in Seattle at brokerage D.A. Davidson.

The rise of Treasury yields early in the New York session was “consistent with the prospect of taking down the $21 billion reopening,” said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut.

NEW YORK, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Treasuries rebounded on Tuesday after three straight sessions of losses, as waning confidence in the stock market restored a safe haven bid for government bonds.

Investors also reassessed their initial relief about a less somber than expected U.S. monthly jobs report on Friday.

The jobs data had momentarily assuaged fears about the risk of a double dip recession and accelerated appetite for stocks and other riskier assets, to the detriment of less risky government bonds.

But U.S. stock indexes fell on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI down 0.7 percent, after a report on the European banking system reawakened fears about the region’s financial health. A Wall Street Journal report raised questions about bank stress tests carried out in the euro zone earlier in the year.

“People have come back to work today feeling they were a little over exuberant in the reaction to Friday’s payrolls number. It was not as a bad as expected but certainly not a harbinger of gangbusters economic growth going forward,” said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co in New York.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note’s price, which moves inversely to its yield, rose 15/32 for a yield of 2.65 percent US10YT=RR, falling back from Friday’s three-week highs around 2.77 percent.

U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but by less than expected, while within the report, private payrolls growth was surprisingly high. See [ID:nN03273418].

NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasuries prices fell for a third straight day on Friday as U.S. labor market data alleviated fears the world’s biggest economy may succumb to a double-dip recession.

The data, which showed that employment declined less than expected in August, curbed investors’ demand for safe-haven U.S. government debt and pushed benchmark yields up to three-week highs.

“Before the payrolls number this morning the Treasury market was positioned for a looming chance of the double-dip scenario and/or the Japan scenario that amounted to really no recovery at all,” said Jay Mueller, senior portfolio manager with Wells Capital Management in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

But Treasuries sold off because “although I would call the report very mediocre, that is a big step up from disastrous,” Mueller said.

The Labor Department said overall U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than the market expected. And the private sector, considered a better gauge of labor market health, added 67,000 jobs, exceeding forecasts. For details on jobs report, see [ID:nN02227856].

For now, Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, could continue to rise, provided that data continues to signal that the United States will skirt recession, analysts said.

Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo/Mitsubishi in New York, cited 3 percent as the target for the benchmark 10-year Treasury note’s yield. The yield on Friday was at 2.71 percent, up from 2.625 percent US10YT=RR on Thursday.

NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasuries fell for a second straight day on Thursday as recent economic data assuaged fears the world’s largest economy may be headed for a double-dip recession.

Data on Thursday showed stronger-than-expected pending homes sales in July and a second week of lower initial claims for unemployment benefits. U.S. stock indexes advanced after their best day in eight weeks during the previous session, further curbing the safe haven bid for government bonds.

U.S. August employment data released on Friday could provide a test of whether the bond-market rally is over.

Bond prices have steadily marched higher in recent months, pushing yields to historic lows as investors sought out lower-risk assets in a barrage of data pointing to a faltering economic recovery. The ultimate fear was the U.S. was heading for a Japan-style lost decade of deflation.

“The Treasury market is once again trading lower as some key economic indicators are offering some hope to investors that we are not headed to a Japanese-style recession,” said Kevin Giddis, president of fixed income capital markets at Morgan Keegan in Memphis, Tennessee.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=RR were trading 15/32 lower in price to yield 2.63 percent, up from 2.58 percent late on Wednesday, while the 30-year bond US30YT=RR was 1-12/32 lower to yield 3.72 percent, from 3.65 percent.

The fall in longer maturities’ prices steepened the Treasury yield curve, with the spread between yields on two-year notes and 10-year notes moving to about 212 basis points, the widest in more than two weeks, from 207 basis points late on Wednesday.

NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. commercial paper market contracted sharply for a second straight week as the slowing economy cooled demand for business credit and companies continued to issue longer term debt, Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday.

For the week ended Sept. 1, the size of the U.S. commercial paper market, a vital source of short-term funding for companies’ day-to-day operations, fell by $22.9 billion to $1.064 trillion outstanding from $1.087 trillion the previous week.

The market is at its smallest size in two months and is roughly half its $2.2 trillion peak in August 2007 when the credit crisis broke out.

The contraction of the commercial paper market “is all part and parcel of lack of demand for short term credit,” said Howard Simons, strategist with Bianco Research in Chicago.

Companies continue to refinance debt into longer-dated corporate notes and bonds while borrowing costs remain low.

Some big banks and companies ran into trouble with short-term debt as rates jumped in the global credit crisis. Since then, many have sought to lengthen the maturity of their debt.

Another factor that is curbing commercial paper issuance is that many companies are flush with cash and are not generating much asset-backed or mortgage-backed commercial paper right now, Simons said.

NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Treasury debt prices fell on Wednesday as surprisingly strong U.S. and Chinese manufacturing data assuaged some concerns about the health of the global economy and whetted investors’ appetite for riskier assets.

As money flowed out of safe-haven government debt into stocks, a steep sell-off in Treasuries pushed the 30-year bond’s price down by three points.

The key catalyst for selling was the widely watched U.S. ISM manufacturing index, which rose to 56.3 in August, beating economists’ consensus forecast for a fall to 53.0. See [ID:nEAP100029].

“With the Institute for Supply Management (report) not only showing a gain from July but completely confounding the consensus of economists for a sharp drop, all of a sudden the economic world is not coming to an end, and that is sharpening the appetite for risk assets,” said David Dietze, chief investment strategist at Point View Financial Services, Summit, New Jersey.

Wednesday’s economic reports go against recent U.S. housing and employment data that apparently signaled the pace of U.S. economic growth continued to slow markedly.

Some analysts cited market chatter about possible reallocation among longer-term investors into stocks and out of government bonds.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note’s price, which moves inversely to its yield, dropped more than one point for a yield of 2.60 percent US10YT=RR, versus 2.54 percent before the manufacturing report and 2.48 percent late on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Treasury debt prices fell on Wednesday as investors ventured back into riskier assets and out of safe-haven government debt, emboldened by a rebound in Chinese manufacturing.

Even data showing a surprise loss of U.S. private sector jobs lent only a fleeting bid to Treasuries and left U.S. stock futures still signaling a higher open.

“Technically we found a range in notes and bonds and a floor on yields,” said Jim Barrett, senior market strategist with Lind-Waldock in Chicago.

Analysts are citing the 2.67 percent area for the benchmark 10-year note’s yield as a near-term upper technical level and between about 2.50 and 2.40 percent as a key lower area.

“This news just wasn’t negative enough,” Barrett said. “The backdrop with the recent data has been so negative anyway so the market is ignoring it,” he added.

Wednesday’s sell-off stalled a two-day rally that had brought benchmark yields down to near multimonth lows, driven partly by month-end extension buying as portfolio managers adjust portfolios in line with benchmark indexes.

Some of those flows into Treasuries have reversed on this first day of the new month, analysts said.