U.S. Treasury yields climbed higher on Friday as the latest jobs report signaled a continued rebound in the labor market.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 4 basis points to 0.821%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond also traded higher at 1.569%. Yields move inversely to prices.
The U.S. added 638,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate also fell to 6.9%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a payroll gain of 530,000 and an unemployment rate of 7.7% a touch lower than the September level of 7.9%.
"Surprisingly the recovery from the recession for the labor market is more V-shaped than many thought and tells us that the outlook is going to be more positive in 2021 than we forecast just a couple of months ago," Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, said in a note on Friday.
Investors continued to wait for the result of the presidential election. Democratic candidate Joe Biden holds narrow leads in Nevada and Arizona, where votes are still being counted. An NBC News tally shows that Biden has gained 253 electoral votes, just 17 votes shy of the 270 needed to win the White House.
Biden has taken the lead in Pennsylvania, NBC News reported Friday. Trump had led since election night. Biden leads in Pennsylvania by more than 5,500 votes with 95% of the expected vote counted.
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve kept benchmark interest rates anchored between 0% to 0.25%, as it said economic activity in the U.S. remained "well below" pre-pandemic levels.
Confirmed cases of the coronavirus continue to surge in the U.S., with the daily count of new infections reaching 121,888 on Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.