U.S. government debt prices extended gains Friday, with U.S. stocks expected to open weaker and investors cautious about next week's meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve and wary of any attempts by the market to rally.
The Fed will meet on September 16 and 17, with the timing of the U.S. central bank's first rate hike in nine years a continued source of debate in the markets.
Treasurys
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note sat lower, at 2.1850 percent, after closing at 2.222 percent on Thursday. The yield on the 30-year Treasury note was also down, at 2.9508 percent, after closing at 2.988 percent. Thursday saw $13 billion of 30-year bonds auctioned at a high yield of 2.980 percent.
On the data front, the August PPI remained unchanged, while economists expected a 0.1-percent drop.
"Bottom line, the story remains the same with the differential between the pricing of goods and services with the former dramatically impacted by energy and other commodities and the latter remaining sticky for a variety of reasons (regulation, healthcare, rents, etc…)," Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group said in a note.
Consumer sentiment for September his 85.7, below the expected 91.2.
The reading represented a 6.7 percent monthly decline and a 1.3 percent increase from this time last year.
"It is a very timely measure of confidence and very likely reflects the declines in stock prices, mediocre job gains, lackluster income growth and no acceleration in economic growth above current trends," Boockvar said.
"For markets, confidence data shouldn't matter unless this gives the Fed another reason not to hike as when confidence was high back in the beginning of the year (and when the Fed should have hiked), the FOMC said in their April statement: 'consumer sentiment remains high.'"
—CNBC's Patti Domm and Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report