U.S. Treasury yields edged lower on Friday morning, as President Trump’s tariffs regime and the broader state of the American economy remain in focus.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was around 4 basis points lower at 3:24 a.m. ET, trading at 4.334%.The 2-year Treasury yield fell by 1 basis point to 3.984%.
One basis point is the equivalent of 0.01%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Traders are continuing to monitor the U.S. economy amid signs of a slowdown, but sentiment was boosted slightly by weekly jobless claims, which were little changed from the previous week in Thursday’s data release.
On Friday, a key report on personal consumption in the United States could give investors more clues on the shape of the world’s biggest economy. The reading is used as an indicator of how persistent inflation is expected to be, but could also signal whether consumers are already changing their spending habits to grapple with the pricing impact of the Trump administration’s new import tariffs.
Earlier this week, U.S. consumer confidence plummeted to a 12-year low.
The broader potential impact of tariffs is also still in focus, after Trump this week announced new 25% duties on all cars “not made in the United States.” The levies will come into effect on April 2. Trump later threatened to impose “far larger” tariffs on Canada and the EU, should they cooperate to “do economic harm to the USA.”
U.S. stock futures ticked higher on Friday after a losing session for Wall Street’s major indexes.
— CNBC’s Sarah Min and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.