U.S. government debt prices were lower on Tuesday, as investors digested another set of speeches from Federal Reserve members, alongside a three-year notes sale.
The Treasury Department auctioned $24 billion in three-year notes at a high yield of 1.572 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of demand, was 2.76.
Indirect bidders, which include major central banks, were awarded 50.8 percent. Direct bidders, which includes domestic money managers, bought 9.3 percent.
The three-year note yield traded at 1.549 percent shortly after the sale.
Meanwhile, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said in a speech that unemployment in the United States has dropped below its natural equilibrium and could overheat the economy
and prompt faster interest-rate hikes if it were to drop below 4 percent.
Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan is set to appear at the Dallas Regional Chamber Lower Middle Market Investment Summit.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari spoke at the Minnesota High Tech Spring Conference in Minneapolis, saying that blockchain technology has more potential for being adopted in the future than bitcoin itself.
Treasurys
"I think sentiment has shifted in the markets, in the Fed," Kashkari said in a speech. "I would say I think conventional wisdom now is that blockchain and the underlying technology is probably more interesting and has more potential than maybe bitcoin does by itself."
Kashkari did not comment on monetary policy.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note moved higher to 2.405 percent at 3:06 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also up at 3.0381 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
On the data front, the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) survey showed small-business confidence slipped in April.
Wholesale inventories for March rose 0.2 percent; economists polled by Reuters expected a decline of 0.1 percent. The JOLTs (job openings and labor turnover survey) showed job openings totaled 5.7 million in March.