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Treasuries gained, pushing yields to the lowest in more than three years, as a persistent rout in global financial markets pushed investors into the safest assets.

Benchmark 10-year notes rose for the sixth day as commodities tumbled and investors dumped equities worldwide.

Concern that central banks have lost the power to shield a global economy from slowing growth and anemic inflation has lifted Treasuries to a 3.9 percent gain in 2016.

Bonds pared advances after the U.S. auctioned $15 billion of 30-year debt at the lowest yield at a sale in more than a year.

"It's been a traumatic rally," Ian Lyngen, a government- bond strategist at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Conn. "To a large extent the market is in a panic mode. The Treasury market is simply a residual market of what's going on in other asset classes, primarily equities and oil, and for that reason it's not trading off its own fundamentals."

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen added fuel to this year's bond rally by suggesting Wednesday that the central bank may delay raising interest rates as recent market volatility has tightened financial conditions. She concluded a two-day appearance before U.S. lawmakers Thursday in Washington.

The benchmark Treasury 10-year yield dropped four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 1.62 percent at 1:05 p.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader data. It touched 1.53 percent, the lowest since August 2012, which was one month after it fell to a record 1.379 percent. The price of the 1.625 percent security due in February 2026 was 100.

The futures market is assigning a 13 percent probability to a Fed interest-rate increase by the end of this year. The calculation is based on the assumption that the effective fed funds rate will trade at the middle of the new target range after the next increase.

The Fed lifted rates for the first time in almost a decade in December, when policy makers signaled they expected four more increases this year.

Officials are aiming to tighten U.S. policy amid signs of domestic economic progress even as central banks in Europe and Japan have boosted stimulus.

"The fear is the central banks are running out of bullets," said Thomas Roth, senior Treasury trader in New York at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities USA Inc.

Crude oil prices fell for a sixth day as a bond-market gauge of inflation expectations tumbled to the lowest in almost seven years.

"This is a perfect storm for a U.S. Treasury holder that keeps driving down yields in this flight-to-quality environment," said London-based David Schnautz, a director of rates strategy at Commerzbank AG.

"Everyone we speak to views that the glass is half empty. That filters through into all types of markets — with the first choice of demand U.S. Treasuries."