CREDIT : Bond Prices Hold Steady in Light Trading

NEW YORK — Bond prices finished little changed Tuesday as the government provided mixed signals on the economy’s direction.

The Treasury’s bellwether 30-year bond fell 1/8 point, or about $1.25 per $1,000 face amount, while its yield rose to 8.35% from 8.34%.

The Commerce Department said its index of leading economic indicators--the government’s main economic forecasting gauge--tumbled 0.6% in January.

But it revised its December figure to reflect a 0.3% rise rather than the 0.2% decline initially reported.

Mixed Bag

In a separate report, the department said construction spending fell 2.9% in January, the biggest decline since a 3.3% drop in March, 1987.

In the secondary market for Treasury bonds, prices of short-term governments rose 2/32 point, intermediate maturities were unchanged and 20-year issues were off 2/32 point, according to figures provided by Telerate Inc., a financial reporting service.

The movement of a point is equivalent to a change of $10 in the price of a bond with a $1,000 face value.

Light Trading

The Merrill Lynch daily Treasury index, which measures price movements on all outstanding Treasury issues with maturities of a year or longer, fell 0.04 to 113.79. The Shearson Lehman daily Treasury bond index, which makes a similar measurement, rose 0.35 to 1,190.38.

In corporate trading, industrials and utilities finished unchanged in light activity, according to the investment firm of Salomon Bros.

Yields on three-month Treasury bills rose a basis point to 5.62%. Six-month bills rose 3 basis points to 5.88% and one-year bills were unchanged at 6.18%. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.

The federal funds rate, the interest on overnight loans between banks, traded at 6.675%, unchanged from Monday.

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