France's credit downgrade was the latest event to push U.S. Treasury bond prices higher.

Today Bill Gross told reporters at CNBC that massive influxes of capital from the Federal Reserve "is in fact inflationary, and, if truth be told, somewhat of a Ponzi scheme."

Over the past seven months, Mr. Gross has slowly dumped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of U.S. Treasury bonds in preparation for what he believes is the end of the bull run in bonds.

Few numbers have been released with as much fanfare and anticipation as last Friday’s Nonfarm Payrolls number. Is it any wonder that the number was pretty good? Are we surprised that economists across the board are hailing the addition of 162,000 jobs in March as definitive evidence that the economic recovery is picking up steam? 

Employment increased at the fastest rate since March 2007. And it wasn’t all Census workers, either. Government hiring accounted for 39,000 workers. That means private companies hired 123,000 people. 

Employment numbers will continue to look good, as Census hiring will continue into June. But we’re going to need to see continued solid growth from private sector employment.

The Russell 2000 and the other major indices are falling following news of a larger-than-expected rise in weekly U.S. jobless claims and renewed concerns of yields on Treasury securities.

At 10:03 a.m. ET the Russell 2000 was down 6.78 points, or 0.81 percent, to 829.40. Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 86.65 points, or 0.64 percent, to 13,402.77.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended June 16 increased 10,000 to 324,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Labor Department reported before the opening bell. That’s a two-month high, suggesting that some of the previous tightness in the labor market may have relaxed just a bit.

Elsewhere, the yield on 10-year Treasury note has increased to 5.15%, above Wednesday’s close of 5.146%.

Investors fear that rising bond yields will increase interest rates and slow economic growth.