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10-Year Treasury Yield Flat Following Powell's Reassurances on Inflation

Source: CNBC

U.S. Treasury yields saw little movement on Wednesday morning, after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated in a congressional testimony that inflation pressures would be temporary.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 1.7 basis points to 1.489% at 4:00 p.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond rose less than a basis point to 2.106%. Yields move inversely to prices and 1 basis point equals 0.01%.

Speaking in front of a House panel on Tuesday, Powell continued to attribute most of the recent jump in inflation to factors closely tied to the economic reopening.

He said it was "very, very unlikely" that the U.S. would see a repeat of 1970s-style inflation.

Bob Parker, investment committee member at Quilvest Wealth Management, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday that he believed "we are going to get a period of significantly higher inflation." He expected headline inflation to remain between 4%-5% and core inflation to be close to 4%, but believed this would "ease off as we go into early next year."

However, Parker added that "we could end up with a period of core inflation closer to 3% rather than the 2% that the Federal Reserve and Jay Powell are forecasting."

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman gave a speech on community development and economic resilience at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's 2021 policy summit Wednesday morning. She said supply chain bottlenecks and upward price pressure driven by the reopening of the economy may ease but "could take some time."

New home sales in the U.S. fell 5.9% in May for their second monthly decline, the National Association of Realtors reported.

Auctions were held Wednesday for $35 billion of 119-day bills, $61 billion of 5-year notes and $26 billion of 2-year floating-rate notes.

CNBC's Jeff Cox contributed to this market report.

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