Bonds: US Treasuries rally hard after Trump interview with WSJ
These were the movements in some of the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:
US: 2.24% (-6bp)
UK:1.05% (0.0%)
Germany: 0.20% (-1bp)
France: 0.93% (-3bp)
Spain: 1.67% (+3bp)
Italy: 2.30% (+2bp)
Portugal: 3.86% (+1bp)
Greece: 6.66% (-6bp)
US Treasuries rallied hard late in the evening after the Journal reported that US president Donald Trump had said "I do like a low interest rate policy."
That sent benchmark 10-year Treasury prices sharply higher, which pushed their yields below technical support levels to their November 2016 lows.
Overall, Trump's reported remarks in his interview with the influential financial daily appeared to be rather staid and included 'friendly' comments towards China and NATO.
Traders however clearly found a signal to act on, although trading volumes were thin ahead of the Easter break, which may have accentuated the price moves.
In parallel, the yield on the two-year note finished down by three basis points at 1.20%. Yet the implied odds of a 25 basis point rate hike at the June FOMC were steady at 62.1%, according to CME data.
Trump also said the US dollar "is getting too strong".
Early on the following day, Treasuries are still seeing follow-through buying, with the yield standing at 2.22%, their session lows.
Similarly-dated Gilts on the other hand were little changed on Wednesday, despite the latest UK employment report having revealed that average weekly earnings rose at a quarterly annualised pace of 2.3% in February, which was one tenth of a percentage point more than analysts had anticipated.
That reading was unchanged from January´s upwardly revised print.
Nonetheless, economists at Barclays pointed out how together with rising consumer prices real earnings were in fact trending lower and were expected to continue doing so.
"Nominal wage growth, however, continued to ease into 2017, and with the ascent of CPI, resulted in real core wage growth decelerating 0.6pp to 0.3% 3m/y, its lowest since October 2014. We expect weakness in nominal wage growth relative to CPI is likely to continue during the course of this year, leading to a squeeze in consumption."
Data out of the euro area was scarce on the ground, with the main release being Spain´s harmonised CPI for March, which revealed a big drop in the cost of living in the Mediterranean country.
Spain's CPI dropped from a 3.0% year-on-year clip in February to 2.1% last month, as energy and non-processed food prices fell back.