The yield on US Treasury bonds was almost unchanged on Friday, as market participants are preparing for the publication of a report on the US labor market, which will be released at 13:30 GMT.
The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds fell by 1.1 basis points, reaching 1.440%, while the yield on 30-year bonds was 1.756% (-1.2 basis points).
As for the data, economists expect that last month employment in the non-agricultural sector increased by 550 thousand after an increase of 531 thousand in October. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is forecast to have dropped to 4.5% from 4.6%.
Given the recent "hawkish" comments by Fed Chairman Powell, strong labor market data is likely to increase the likelihood of a faster-than-expected reduction in the Fed's quantitative easing program. Yesterday, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Rafael Bostic, said that he believes it is necessary to accelerate the pace of reducing asset repurchases in order to be able to raise the interest rate next year if inflationary pressures do not ease.
Bill Street, chief investment officer at Quintet Private Bank, said he expects the Fed to raise interest rates in 2022. However, he argued that, given where they were pre-pandemic at the start of 2020, central banks were only really looking to normalize back to level.
In addition to labor market data, Services PMI from Markit (at 14:45 GMT) and ISM Non-Manufacturing (at 15:00 GMT) will be presented today.