U.S. Treasury yields were lower on Friday morning, as Congress continued to haggle over pandemic relief funding.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dipped to 0.8882% at 4 a.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell to 1.6157%. Yields move inversely to prices.
Congress remains at an impasse over a coronavirus stimulus package. Republican Senate leaders rejected a $908 billion aid package, proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a one-week extension to the current government relief funding on Wednesday, in a bid to give lawmakers more time to agree a next package. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Thursday that negotiations could run through the holiday period.
This comes as weekly jobless claims jumped to 853,000, its highest point since Sept. 19 and up from 716,000 in the previous week, according to data released by the Labor Department Thursday.
Meanwhile, an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday voted in favor of recommending the Pfizer–BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.
November figures from the U.S. producer price index are expected at 9:30 a.m. ET on Friday, while the University of Michigan is set to release preliminary U.S. inflation and consumer sentiment data for December at 11 a.m. ET.
Randal Quarles, vice chair for supervision on the Federal Reserve board, is due to make a speech at 1:40 p.m. ET.
There are no bond auctions due to be held on Friday.
