Economic News and the Yield Curve: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market

Abstract

This paper examines newly-available intra-day data from the inter-dealer government bond market to investigate the effects of economic-news announcements on prices, trading volume, and bid-ask spreads. The use of intra-day price data together with data on market expectations allows us to obtain new and different results relative to previous studies. We find a total of seventeen economic announcements to have a significant impact on the price of at least one of the following instruments: a three-month bill, a two ' and ten year note, and a thirty year bond. Ten of them significantly affect all note and bond prices. For announcements that have a significant impact on prices, the impact occurs within one minute after the announcement. Interestingly, only three announcements affect the bill price. This suggests that at least two factors of uncertainty are needed to model the yield curve. For the ten-year note we find a strong association between announcements and trading volume. Economic announcements have less effect on trading volume for the three-month bill, although changes in monetary policy lead to an average trading volume up to nine times higher than at non-announcement times. Bid-ask spreads widen immediately after most economic announcements, but then return to normal levels within 5 to 15 minutes. For almost all announcements, volatility is significantly higher after the release, especially for the announcements that significantly affect prices.