U.S. Treasury yields decline after jobless claims touch three-month high

Investing.com -- U.S. Treasury yields fell on Thursday after new data showed that applications for unemployment aid jumped to their highest level in three months last week.

Labor Department figures showed that the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits, a proxy for lay-offs and one of the most timely indicators of the health of the U.S. labor market, rose to a seasonally adjusted 231,000 for the week ending on Nov. 11 -- the most since mid-August. Economists had seen the reading at 220,000.

The numbers hinted at easing conditions in the jobs market, a trend that could bolster investors' hopes that the Federal Reserve will soon bring an end to its long-standing campaign of interest rate hikes.

Kathy Jones, Chief Fixed Income Strategist at Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), said in a post on social media platform X that the data pointed to "[m]ore signs that the labor market is loosening."

By 10:44 ET (15:44 GMT), both the rate-sensitive 2-year Treasury yield and the benchmark 10-year yield had slipped by 9 basis points to 4.825% and 4.445%, respectively. Yields typically move inversely to prices.