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Treasury Yields Rise Slightly as Investors Gear Up for Fed Meeting

Source: NYSE
  • The Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss policy.
  • Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is then set to hold a press conference following the meeting at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
  • There are no major data releases due out on Monday.

Treasury yields rose slightly on Monday, with investors gearing up for the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting this week.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 3 basis points to 1.5% at 4:00 p.m. ET. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond climbed to 2.18%. Yields move inversely to prices.

The Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss policy. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is then set to hold a press conference following the meeting at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

The Fed is expected to reiterate its commitment to easy monetary policy. However, investors will be watching to see if concerns about inflation will have any effect on its forecasts, particularly given last week's hotter-than-expected consumer price index reading for May.

Julien Lafargue, chief market strategist at Barclays, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday that the bank broadly agreed with the Fed and the European Central Bank's belief that inflationary pressures were transitory and should "fade away progressively as we move towards the second half of this year."

Lafargue said Barclays expected inflation to be slightly higher going forward, but not to continue to be as high as May's reading.

"We might settle in the 2%-3% range for a while, as the recovery takes place, but that would be the upper end of range that we expect to see," he added.

Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones disagreed, saying "the idea that inflation is transitory, to me ... that one just doesn't work the way I see the world," on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday morning.

He also said the Fed meeting Wednesday could be the most important in Powell's career and warned it could spark a big sell-off in risk assets.

"If they say, 'We've got incoming data, we've accomplished our mission or we're on the way very rapidly to accomplishing our mission on employment,' then you're going to get a taper tantrum," Tudor Jones said. "You're going to get a sell-off in fixed income. You're going to get a correction in stocks."

There are no major data releases due out on Monday.

Auctions were held Monday for $57 billion of 13-week bills and $54 billion of 26-week bills.

— CNBC's Tanaya Macheel contributed to this story.

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