(Adds remarks, comment about Fed minutes) By Herbert Lash NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields jumped on Wednesday on news Federal Reserve policymakers in April hinted at a possible shift in future policy, conjuring up memories of a 2013 market sell-off known as the "taper tantrum." Minutes of the U.S. central bank"s April 27-28 meeting said a number of policymakers thought if the U.S. economy continued rapid progress, it would be appropriate "at some point" in upcoming meetings to begin discussing tapering government bond purchases. The mere hint of "taper talk" was enough to spark a sell-off in bonds and send stocks lower, said Patrick Leary, chief market strategist and senior trader at Incapital. The minutes suggested the beginning of a consensus among policymakers to lean more towards "we should start this taper talk a little sooner rather than later," Leary said. The minutes were slightly hawkish on the margin, making the market a little bit more anxious, he said. "Planting a few seeds like this well ahead of time lets the market get in front of it so when the final taper is announced, we"ll all expect it, it won"t be a surprise," Leary said. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was up 3.8 basis points to 1.680%, pulling back slightly from a day"s high of 1.6920%. The bond sell-off started earlier in the session when an auction of $27 billion in 20-year Treasuries was met with weak demand, Leary said. It was the fifth time in row for a poorly received 20-year Treasury auction, he said. Fed officials have pledged to maintain ultra-loose policies, betting that an unexpected surge in consumer prices last month stemmed from temporary forces that will soon ease and that the U.S. jobs market needs more time to get people back to work. Michael Brown, senior analyst at payments firm Caxton in London said the market over-reacted to the minutes. "Not only because of the jobs data, but because the minutes can always place too much emphasis on a couple of hawkish outliers on the committee, which in turn sees the market place too much weight on their remarks," Brown said. Comments from Fed officials since the April 27-28 meeting have indicated that if anything the employment data from April cemented the view that it was still too early to discuss changes to the Fed"s $120 billion in monthly bond purchases. Earlier Treasury yields had fallen after digital currencies bitcoin and ethereum posted their biggest single-day plunge since March 2020. The losses in the market capitalization for the digital currency sector approached $1 trillion after China banned financial and payment institutions from providing cryptocurrency services. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard in separate remarks on Wednesday indicated there was little on the horizon to be concerned about. Bostic in a Bloomberg TV interview said the time to change monetary policy had not been reached and Bullard said if market-based inflation expectations "run away from us" action might be needed, but that has not happened. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was up 1.9 basis points to 2.383%. The breakeven rate on five-year U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) was last at 2.664%, after closing at 2.730% on Tuesday, near its highest close in just over a decade. The rate was just shy of 2% at the end of 2020. The 10-year TIPS breakeven rate was last at 2.503%, indicating the market sees inflation averaging 2.5% a year for the next decade. May 19 Wednesday 3:21PM New York / 1921 GMT Price Current Net Yield % Change (bps) Three-month bills 0.015 0.0152 0.000 Six-month bills 0.025 0.0254 -0.005 Two-year note 99-240/256 0.1572 0.006 Three-year note 99-178/256 0.3527 0.024 Five-year note 99-118/256 0.8616 0.041 Seven-year note 99-116/256 1.3327 0.046 10-year note 99-124/256 1.6813 0.039 20-year bond 93-76/256 2.2993 0.030 30-year bond 99-208/256 2.3838 0.020 DOLLAR SWAP SPREADS Last (bps) Net Change (bps) GooU.S. 2-year dollar swap 10.00 0.00 spread U.S. 3-year dollar swap 11.25 -0.25 spread U.S. 5-year dollar swap 7.75 -0.75 spread U.S. 10-year dollar swap -4.25 -0.50 spread U.S. 30-year dollar swap -31.75 0.25 spread (Reporting by Herbert Lash; additional reporting by Saqib Ahmed in New York, Editing by Barbara Lewis and Andrea Ricci) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.