People shop at a grocery store in Manhattan on Feb. 27, 2026 in New York City.
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The 2-year Treasury yield rose on Thursday after new labor market data and as inflation fears linked to the U.S.-Iran war continued to sour sentiment.
The key note yield, which is closely linked to short-term Federal Reserve policy, jumped 6 basis points to 3.803%.The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was less than 1 basis point higher at 4.261%. The 30-year Treasury bond yield fell more than 3 basis points to 4.842%.
One basis point equals 0.01%, and yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Yields had taken a leg higher after the price of Brent crude oil briefly soared to $119 a barrel and initial jobless claims for the week ended March 14 were less than economists anticipated. Claims for unemployment benefits came in at 205,000 compared to the Dow Jones forecast from economists for 215,000.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve manufacturing survey for March unexpectedly jumped to 18.1 vs. a Wall Street forecast of 8.4.
The moves came one day after Fed officials raised their predictions for the path of inflation and interest rates at the same time as they held its key interest rate steady. The central bank said the “implications of developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain.”
On Thursday, central banks in Japan, Sweden, England and Switzerland also cited the war in Iran as they opted to keep their key interest rates unchanged.
The Middle East war, surging oil prices and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a critical oil shipping chokepoint — have raised concerns that an energy shock will add inflationary pressure across the globe.
Overnight, oil prices soared after energy facilities in Qatar and Iran were hit by strikes. Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field, prompting retaliatory missile attacks by Iran across the Persian Gulf.
In a post on Truth Social late Wednesday night, President Donald Trump threatened to “massively blow-up” the South Pars field if Qatar is attacked again.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar – In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before,” he wrote.
Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid said in a note out Thursday that the military escalation against energy infrastructure across the Middle East, and the “more watchful tone on inflation” from Fed Chair Jerome Powell had “sent investors pricing out the likelihood of rate cuts this year.”
— CNBC’s Matt Peterson and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.