U.S. government debt prices rose on Thursday, holding higher despite a reversal in oil prices.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dipped to 1.709 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell to 2.584 percent.
Meanwhile, the close of a planned Treasury Department auction of $28 billion in seven-year notes got delayed until Friday due to a "technical issue," the Treasury said. The noncompetitive and competitive portions of the sale are set to close at 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. ET, respectively.
The Treasury said bids that were already submitted would stand. The delay would likely cause few disruptions, except for those making short-term bets around the auction itself, traders said.
"This is atypical but it's happened once every few years," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.
An unrelated Federal Reserve purchase of mortgage-backed securities was also rescheduled this week following a technical glitch.
Treasurys
In oil markets Thursday, Brent crude and U.S. crude both lost ground before reversing course. Brent crude traded at $35.33, up 2.4 percent, while U.S. crude was at $33.01, up 2.7 percent. Meanwhile, the major U.S. stock averages rose after struggling for gains earlier in the day.
On the data front, jobless claims came in at 272,000, slightly above the expected 270,000. Meanwhile, durable goods orders rose 4.9 percent in January, well above the expected 2.5 percent increase.
On Wednesday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, a voting member of the Federal Reserve's policymaking committee, reiterated his opposition to further interest rate hikes given that U.S. inflation expectations have fallen and threaten the U.S. central bank's credibility.
"I regard it as unwise to continue a normalization strategy in an environment of declining market-based inflation expectations," he said in prepared remarks.
— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng and Reuters contributed to this report.