U.S. government debt prices were higher on Friday as the Federal Reserve said it is set to unwind its balance sheet this year in the latest minutes from the central bank.
During the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in March, officials said they want to begin shredding the $4.5 trillion in bonds the central bank is holding on its balance sheet, according to the summary text.
The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes was lower at around 2.344 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was slight higher at 2.995 percent.
Treasurys
Treasury yields have been trending lower since mid-March. However, strategists have said bonds were overbought, and yields broke a downtrend Tuesday morning, as President Trump met at the White House with CEOs to discuss deregulation, infrastructure and other topics.
Strategists also say it's possible the yield could break below 2 percent again, if there is no new strength in economic data or some form of cooperation among lawmakers emerges. The latter could drive it back toward 2.5 percent.
Private payrolls rose by 263,000 last month, well above a consensus estimate of 185,000. The February number was revised significantly lower, however, from the originally reported 298,000.
Other data released Wednesday the Institute for Supply Management non-manufacturing index which came in at 55.2, below an expected read if 57.
In oil markets, Brent crude traded at around $54.45 a barrel on Wednesday, up around 0.52 percent, while U.S. crude was around $51.23 a barrel, up around 0.39 percent.
—CNBC's Jeff Cox and Patti Domm contributed to this report