Bonds

US Treasurys rise after Fed remarks, oil's fall

U.S. government debt prices were higher on Tuesday as investors digested remarks from key Federal Reserve officials and a fall in oil prices.

turn their attention to the Federal Reserve with leading members set to deliver speeches.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note sat lower at around 2.158 percent at 2:28 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was lower at 2.742 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

Treasurys


With very little economic data to digest, investors focused on key speeches by three Fed members, to see if they elaborate on the state of the U.S. economy, after the central bank recently chose to raise rates for the second time in 2017.

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said the current low-rate environment was likely to remain for some time, adding that low rates handicap the central bank's ability to "offset negative shocks."

Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer is also at the meeting in Amsterdam, where he has delivered a keynote speech. At the event, Fischer warned that while the U.S. and other nations have taken actions to strengthen their housing finance systems, more needs to be done to prevent a future crisis, according to Reuters.

Later on in the day, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan will be at the Commonwealth Club of California, in San Francisco, where he is likely to weigh in on current economic conditions and implications for monetary policy.

Sticking with central banks, the Bank of Japan is set to release the minutes of its April monetary policy meeting at 7:50 p.m. ET (8:50 a.m. local time on Wednesday).

Meanwhile, minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) June meeting showed on Tuesday that soaring household debt and weak wages growth were key topics dominating policymakers' minds; Reuters reported.

On the oil front, prices under pressure as concerns of a glut in the market continued to add pressure to sentiment.

At 2:28 p.m. ET, U.S. crude was hovering around $43.29, while Brent stood at $46 per barrel.

WTI is now down more than 20 percent from its 52-week intraday high of 55.24 struck on Jan. 3, putting the commodity in bear market territory.

Prices for WTI's August contract, which becomes the front-month on Wednesday, were down $1.20, or 2.7 percent, at $43.23. Trading volume was concentrated in the August contract.

—CNBC's Tom DiChristopher contributed to this report.

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