U.S. stocks open lower in the wake of Greece's referendum; Treasurys surge

U.S. stocks began the week in the red zone, as investors worldwide turned away from riskier assets following Greece's rejection of bailout terms, which increased the prospect of the country exiting the eurozone. 

The S&P 500 opened 16 points, or 0.8% lower at 2,059.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 150 points, or 0.8%, to 17,581.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 48 points, or 1% at 4,961.

Treasury prices rose, pushing yields to their lowest levels since mid June.

In the aftermath of the Greek resounding “no” along with last Thursday’s rise spurred by the U.S. official jobs report, on Monday the 10-year Treasury yield down to as low as 2.27% overnight, from 2.46% on Thursday.

Chris Bury, head of U.S. rates sales & trading at Jefferies wrote in a note: “Expect the 10-year (Treasury) to trade inside the 2.25% to 2.50% range that has held throughout this Greek saga, but we think a break below 2.25% opens further downside potential to 2.10%.”

According to Tradeweb, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped 8.8 basis points to 2.301%.

The two-year yield lost 3.6 basis points to 0.597% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury fell 8.9 basis point to 3.103%.

Compared to Treasury yields, in the eurozone periphery, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, yields were up between nine to 18 basis points.

The 10-year Spanish debt added 9.8 basis points to 2.338%, while yields on 10-year Italian government paper rose 8.5 basis points to 2.358%. The yield on 10-year Portuguese bonds climbed 18 basis points to 3.156%.

According to Tradeweb’s indicative prices, the yield on 10-year bonds surged more than 3.26 percentage points to 18.113%. On regulated platforms, Greek bonds are closed for trading.