Treasury yields tick higher after fresh CPI report

Treasury yields rose Thursday as investors weighed fresh economic data pointing to stubbornly high inflation.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was higher by about 6 basis point at 4.655%, off its lows from earlier in the session. The 2-year Treasury yield was last trading at 5.077% after rising by 7 basis points.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point is equivalent to 0.01%.

September's CPI showed a rise of 0.4% on a month-over-month basis, and 3.7% from a year ago, according to the Labor Department on Thursday. That was more than the rise of 0.3% and 3.6%, respectively, anticipated by economists polled by Dow Jones.

However, the so-called core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased 0.3% on the month and 4.1% on a yearly basis. Both were in line with expectations.

Thursday's report comes a day after the release of hotter-than-expected wholesale prices data and could inform the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy decision and thereby influence whether the central bank will hike interest rates higher or not.

Minutes from the Fed's last meeting in September were released Wednesday and indicated that officials expect restrictive policies to remain in place until they are sure inflation is headed back down toward the 2% target range. Policymakers were however divided on whether further interest rate hikes will be needed to achieve this.

This difference in opinion has also been reflected in comments from Fed speakers in recent weeks, with some leaving the door to further rate hikes open while others indicated they believe rates have been raised sufficiently.