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Australian bonds slump after June employment change massively beats expectations

Australian government bonds slumped on Thursday after June employment change massively beat market expectations, pushing the 2-year yield to highest since June 21.

The yield on Australia’s benchmark 10-year Note, which moves inversely to its price, rose 2 basis points to 2.669 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year Note jumped 1-1/2 basis points to 3.140 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year up 4-1/2 basis points to 2.073 percent by 03:30 GMT.

According to latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today, trend employment increased by around 27,000 persons in June 2018 and the growth was evenly split between full-time and part-time employment, with both increasing by over 13,000 persons. The net increase of 27,000 persons comprised well over 300,000 people entering employment, and more than 300,000 leaving employment in the month.

The trend participation rate remained steady at 65.6 percent in June 2018, after the May figure was revised up. Over the past year, trend employment increased by 318,000 persons or 2.6 percent, which was above the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (2.0 percent). The trend unemployment rate was 5.4% in the month of June 2018, unchanged from previous month.

"Over the year to June, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage points. This continues a gradual decrease in the trend unemployment rate from late 2014 and is the lowest rate since January 2013," said the Chief Economist for the ABS, Bruce Hockman in a press release.

In the United States, Treasuries remained weak following positive outlook from the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in his testimony to the Congress. At the time of writing, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yields was up 1bp to 2.886 percent.

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 index traded 0.14 percent higher at 6,209.5 by 03:30 GMT, while at 03:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly AUD Strength Index remained neutral at 69.74 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex   

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