(Adds new comment, more U.S. data, bullets, updates yields)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, July 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields rose
on Thursday after data showed the world's largest economy
created more jobs than expected last month, supporting the
Federal Reserve's patient stance on cutting interest rates.
In late morning trading, U.S. two-year yields, which track
interest rate expectations, rose 8.5 basis points to 3.874%
, while the benchmark 10-year yield gained 4.1 bps to
4.334%.
Volume has thinned, however, following the nonfarm payrolls
report, with U.S. bond markets closed on Friday for the July 4th
holiday.
On the political front, Republicans in the U.S. House of
Representatives advanced President Donald Trump's massive "One
Big Beautiful Bill" toward a final yes-or-no vote on Thursday,
overcoming internal party divisions over its cost.
The bill, if approved, would raise the debt ceiling by $5
trillion, which will allow the U.S. Treasury to increase bill
auction sizes in the coming weeks.
But Thursday's jobs report was the market's focus.
The report showed U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 147,000
jobs last month after an upwardly revised 144,000 gain in May.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising
110,000 following a previously reported 139,000 gain in May.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2% in May.
Economists had expected the jobless rate to tick up to 4.3%.
The headline numbers, however, obscure weaker details of the
report, analysts said.
Stan Shipley, fixed income strategist at Evercore ISI,
pointed to state and local government employment accounting for
50% of the overall gain. He also added that private service job
gains were only 68,000 and private goods producing jobs advanced
just 6,000, while temporary employment slipped.
The odds of a July cut shrank to 4.7% after the jobs data, from
about 25% before the report's release. Chances of a September
easing also dropped to 75%, compared with 98% just before.
There were only about 50 bps rate declines priced in 2025, from
about 67 bps before the report.
"You look at it at the headline number level and conclude
that the fears around the softer labor markets to this point
have continued to be worse than the reality," said Jim Baird,
chief investment officer, at Plante Moran Financial Advisors at
Southfield, Michigan.
"The job market appears to be hanging in there. I'd say
that you have to look at the next layer of the data and when you
see the pretty marked slowdown in job creation in the private
sector, there is still a cautionary note there."
The yield curve flattened after the data, with the spread
between two-year and 10-year yields at 45.4 bps
compared with 49.2 bps late Wednesday, as the bond market priced
in a likely delay in Fed easing.
Other economic data such as weekly jobless claims and services
sector index showed a still solid economy. Initial claims fell
to 233k in the last week of June, the lowest since mid-May, from
237,000 in the previous week, suggesting that the layoff rate
remained low.
U.S. services sector activity, on the other hand,
picked up
in June as orders rebounded, but employment contracted for
the third time this year, underscoring the impact of policy
uncertainty on businesses.
The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM)
nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) increased to
50.8 last month from 49.9 in May. Economists polled by Reuters
had forecast the services PMI rising to 50.5.