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U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield Tops 2.04% as Geopolitical Tensions Cool, Producer Prices Surge

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

U.S. Treasury yields moved higher on Tuesday, swiftly reversing losses after the Russian Defense Ministry said it had begun returning some troops to their bases.

The announcement raised hopes of de-escalating geopolitical tensions near the Ukrainian border after days of warnings of an imminent Russian invasion.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 4 basis points to 2.043% at around 4:00 p.m. ET. The benchmark 10-year rate, which stood below the 2% level before news of the pull-out of some Russian troops, had climbed above 2% last week following the hottest inflation reading in four decades.

The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond traded more than 5 basis points higher at 2.359%. Yields move inversely to prices and a basis point equals 0.01%.

Yields moved higher on Monday as St. Louis Fed President James Bullard reiterated his call for the central bank to take aggressive steps to fight inflation in the first half of 2022. Bullard told CNBC that the Fed should "front-load" the tightening of its monetary policy.

Earlier on Monday, yields were lower but came back following comments from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Vladimir Putin that appeared to suggest Russia would continue talks with EU and NATO over Ukraine.

Data out Tuesday morning showed prices at the wholesale level jumped twice the expected level in January, the Labor Department reported.

The producer price index, which measures final-demand goods and services, rose1% for the month, against the Dow Jones estimate for 0.5%. Over the past 12 months the gauge rose an unadjusted 9.7%, close to a record in data going back to 2010.

Excluding food, energy and trade services, co-called core PPI increased 0.9% for the month, well ahead of the 0.4% estimate.

— CNBC's Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

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