The yield on Canada’s 10-year government bond eased to around 3.42%, pulling back from its highest since August of 3.47% peak reached on December 9th, as softer domestic price pressures and increasingly dovish expectations for the US Federal Reserve weighed on long-term rates. Inflation data showing headline CPI steady at 2.2% and the trimmed-mean easing to a ten-month low of 2.8% reinforced confidence that price pressures are converging toward the Bank of Canada’s target. Earlier, the BoC’s decision to hold rates at 2.25% and its assessment that policy is “about the right level” curbed expectations for aggressive near-term easing. At the same time, a broad softening in the US policy outlook pressured global yields, as delayed US labor and consumption data signaled a cooling economy, with unemployment rising to 4.6% and retail sales stalling.