The worst is over for the $10 trillion U.S. Treasury market following the biggest quarterly rout since 2010, according to Wall Street’s largest bond trading firms, Bloomberg reported.

After rising to as high as 2.4 percent last month from 1.88 percent at the end of 2011, the yield on the benchmark 10-year note will finish 2012 at 2.49 percent, according to the average estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of the 21 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve.

Signs of strength in the economy, which caused a 5.56 percent loss in bonds maturing in 10 years or more last quarter, may fade in the second half of 2012, the dealers say.

Tax cuts are expiring, $1 trillion of mandatory federal budget cuts are due to kick in and $100-a-barrel oil is eating into consumer spending. With inflation in check, Federal Reserve Board  Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the central bank will consider further stimulus.

“The backup that we’ve seen over the past three or four weeks was not fully justified by what we’re seeing in the data,” said Aneta Markowska, a senior U.S. economist at primary dealer Societe Generale SA in New York. The 10-year yield will end the year at 2.25 percent, she said.