NEW YORK (Reuters) - Treasury debt prices rose on Thursday, driving yields to historic lows, as investors anxious about riskier assets piled into long-dated bonds to try to lock in safe returns at year-end.
Bonds came off their highs after a government report showed first-time filings for unemployment benefits came roughly in line with analyst forecasts, though they remained deep in recessionary territory.
"This provides further evidence that not only are we in a deep recession, it may be one of the worst recessions seen in the past 50 years," said Dana Saporta, an economist at Dresdner Kleinwort in New York.
Initial jobless claims fell by 21,000 last week, but the four-week moving average, which evens out weekly volatility, rose by nearly 3,000 to keep it near a 26-year high.
The price on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes last traded up 1-1/32 at 114-26/32. Their yield, which moves inversely to price, was 2.093 percent compared with 2.203 percent late Wednesday. It was above the 2.085 percent set earlier, which was the lowest level seen since the early 1950s.
The 30-year bond, the longest Treasuries maturity,, was up more than a point with its yield near a record low of 2.60 percent.
Among ultra short-dated debt, the rate on three-month Treasury bills was near zero percent after dipping briefly into negative territory, underscoring the intense bids for cash among jittery investors.
(Reporting by Richard Leong and Burton Frierson, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
