U.S. Treasury prices rose early Wednesday, pushing yields lower, after Iran said it was willing to retaliate against any measures taken against it, following a drone strike on Saudi Arabian oil facilities in the past weekend.
What are Treasurys doing?
The 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, -1.60% fell 4.4 basis points to 1.770%, while the 2-year note rate TMUBMUSD02Y, -1.64% was down 2.6 basis points to 1.711%. The 30-year bond yield TMUBMUSD30Y, -1.14% slipped 4.2 basis points to 2.238%.
What’s driving Treasurys?
Investors took shelter in haven assets like U.S. government paper after reports said Iranian officials sent a note to Washington stating that any American move against Iran would receive an immediate response. Tehran denied they were behind the drone strike on Saudi Arabian crude production plant, which briefly knocked out about half of the country’s oil output.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it would hold a news conference on Wednesday presenting “material evidence and Iranian weapons proving the Iranian regime’s involvement in the terrorist attack.”
However, all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve as its interest-rate setting committee releases its policy decision at 2 p.m. Eastern. The central bank is widely anticipated to lower rates by a quarter percentage point, but Wall Street may be more eagerly anticipating details on the possibility of a standing repo facility which would supply liquidity to cap stresses in money markets and keep the fed funds rate within its target range.
The central bank will hold another overnight repurchasing operation on Wednesday morning, promising to carry out up to $75 billion of repos. The move comes as a surge earlier this week in the short-term repurchasing rate, used by banks and hedge funds to finance their trading operations, sparked a liquidity squeeze across Wall Street.
See: Wall Street raises questions about Fed’s late action on funding squeeze
In other economic data, investors will see U.S. housing starts numbers for August.
What did market participants’ say?
“Officials are more likely than not to push the cut button,” wrote Charalambos Pissouros, seniormarket analyst at JFD Group, referring to the Fed meeting later Wednesday. “That said, the aftermath direction will depend on what signals officials will send with regards to their future course of action,”
“In June, the 2019 median dot of their interest-rate projections pointed to no hikes this year. However, 8 out of the 17 members were in favor of lower rates. One member voted for one cut, while the other seven supported the case of two. Since then, the Committee cut rates in July, and as we already noted, it is possible to deliver another one at this meeting,” said Pissouros.