U.S. government debt prices were mixed on Friday as investors digested better-than-expected housing data and kept an eye on developments in foreign markets.
Housing starts in the U.S. totaled 1.16 million in May, above a consensus estimate of 1.15 million.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note sat higher, at 1.6139 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also higher, at 2.4292 percent. Two-year note yields traded flat at 0.6968 percent. A bond's yield moves inversely to its price.
Treasurys
On June 2 the U.K. will go to the polls to vote on whether to stay in or leave the European Union, and some of the tension in markets could end if a Brexit vote is rejected.
On Thursday U.K. lawmaker Jo Cox died after being stabbed and shot, and campaigns on both sides of the referendum were temporarily suspended.
Investors in the U.S. also digested remarks made by St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, in which he said only one rate hike is needed through 2018.
"An older narrative that the Bank has been using since the financial crisis ended has now likely outlived its usefulness, and so it is being replaced by a new narrative. The hallmark of the new narrative is to think of medium- and longer-term macroeconomic outcomes in terms of regimes," Bullard said.