WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After seeing modest strength for much of the day, treasuries finished Friday's trading session near the unchanged line.
Bond prices ended the day slightly higher but off their best levels. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 2.829 percent.
The roughly flat close by treasuries came as stocks on Wall Street saw modest weakness despite better than expected quarterly earnings from financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC).
Traders may have been reluctant to make significant moves ahead of a slew of earnings news next week, with Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), IBM (IBM), American Express (AXP), and General Electric (GE) among the companies due to report their quarterly results.
On the U.S. economic front, the University of Michigan released a report showing a bigger than expected drop in consumer sentiment in the month of April.
The report said the preliminary reading on the consumer sentiment index for April came in at 97.8 compared to the final March reading of 101.4. Economists had expected the index to edge down to 100.5.
'Consumer sentiment slipped in early April, largely reversing the gains recorded in the prior two months,' said Richard Curtin, the survey's chief economist. 'The small decline was widely shared by all age and income subgroups and across all regions of the country.'
He added, 'Importantly, confidence still remains relatively high, despite the recent losses that were mainly due to concerns about the potential impact of Trump's trade policies on the domestic economy.'
Earnings news may drive trading next week, although reports on retail sales, housing starts, and industrial production are also likely to attract attention.
The Federal Reserve is also due to release its Beige Book, which may shed additional light on the outlook for interest rates.
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