NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors raised their bearish bets on longer-dated U.S. Treasuries as a rally in the bond market pushed benchmark yields to their lowest since February, J.P. Morgan's latest Treasury client survey showed on Tuesday.
Investors had shifted money into Treasuries from stocks and other risky assets in recent weeks on concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump and top Republican lawmakers may struggle to pass fiscal stimulus policies.
Following the Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare in the House of Representatives, investors have worried the setback could hamper efforts for a broad restructuring of the tax code, including cuts to the rates paid by corporations.
The anticipated tax cuts had underpinned the surge in bond yields and stock prices following Trump's win in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
Some analysts said the bond market rally may be overdone.
The share of "short" investors who said they were holding fewer longer-dated U.S. government securities than their portfolio benchmarks rose to 23 percent in the week to April 3 from 20 percent in the prior week, J.P. Morgan's survey showed.
J.P. Morgan surveyed clients, including bond fund managers, central banks and sovereign wealth funds.
The share of "long" investors who said they were holding more longer-dated Treasuries than their benchmarks remained at 16 percent for a second week.
Short investors outnumbered long investors by 7 percentage points, the most in five weeks. A week ago, they were net shorts by four points.
On Tuesday, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury (US10YT=RR) hit a session low of 2.314 percent, its least since Feb. 24, according to Reuters data.
The share of "neutral" investors who said they were holding amounts of longer-dated Treasuries that match their benchmarks declined to 61 percent from 64 percent last week, the survey showed.
Active clients, which included market makers and hedge funds, stuck to their positions from a week ago, the J.P. Morgan survey showed.
Eighty percent of them said they were neutral. None of them said they were short, while 20 percent of them said they were long.