treasury yields rose early wednesday as investors awaited congressional testimony by federal reserve chairman jerome powell and continued to monitor russia’s invasion of ukraine the postinvasion treasury rally took a respite early wednesday treasury prices had been on the rise dragging yields down sharply since russia last week launched its attack on ukraine prompting investors to pile into safehaven assets the 10year treasury yield dipped below 170 on tuesday and saw a fall of 276 basis points based on 3 pm levels over the first two days of the week the largest twoday drop since march 23 2020 the 2year yield fell a combined 281 basis points on monday and tuesday its largest twoday drop since oct 2 2008 the invasion and resulting rounds of sanctions against moscow by the us and western nations have fueled a surge in oil and other commodity prices with the us crude benchmark cl1 topping 111 a barrel early wednesday soaring commodity prices are seen adding fuel to inflation already running at a nearly 40year high but have also sparked fears of an economic slowdown clouding the outlook for federal reserve monetary policy rate futures were pricing in a less than 4 chance the fed would raise interest rates by 50 basis points or half a percentage point when policy makers meet later this month that’s down from 34 a week ago according to the cme fedwatch tool the market is now pricing in a 963 chance of a quarterpoint increase and a 37 chance of a halfpoint rise powell will have the opportunity to provide his assessment of the outlook when he appears before the house financial services committee to testify on monetary policy and the economic outlook powell will appear before a senate committee on thursday the adp employment report will estimate privatesector jobs activity in february economists surveyed by the wall street journal look for an increase of 400000 the report comes ahead of february government jobs data due on friday but economists note that the adp data has often been an unreliable guide to the official jobs reading the federal reserve’s beige book report a compilation of anecdotal observations of economic activity across the central bank’s districts is due at 2 pm eastern investors will also hear from chicago fed president charles evans and st louis fed president james bullard who were both scheduled to speak wednesday what are analysts saying powell “will have to acknowledge the additional upward pressure on inflation as well as the potential impact on growth but we would be amazed if he were to suggest that this requires the fed to hike more quickly given the immensely uncertain environment” said ian shepherdson chief economist at pantheon macroeconomics in a note “we expect mr powell instead to emphasize the uncertainty and to state that the fed will respond flexibly if required to changing circumstances”