U.S. government debt prices were higher on Tuesday, as investors geared up for another group of economic data releases.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note sank to around 2.266 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also down at 2.854 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
Treasurys
Attention turned to Washington as two more Republican senators said Monday they will oppose the current Republican health-care bill — enough to doom its passage, for now.
In messages posted to Twitter, Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Ks., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, became the third and fourth GOP senators to say they would not support their party's Obamacare replacement plan as written. They said they would not even back a motion to proceed — a procedural vote that would start debate on the bill.
Investors are also digesting new data, including June import prices from the Department of Labor.
U.S. import prices fell for a second straight month in June amid further declines in the cost of petroleum products, suggesting inflation pressures could remain benign for a while, according to Reuters.
The Labor Department said on Tuesday that import prices decreased 0.2 percent last month after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent decline in May.
A monthly index of homebuilder confidence in the single-family market fell 2 points in July to 64 from a downwardly revised June reading. Economists had expected a reading of 68.
New tariffs on Canadian lumber of up to 24 percent announced by the Trump administration in May, as well as the expectation of additional tariffs on other homebuilding materials imported from overseas, are overtaking the benefits of deregulation.
The Treasury International Capital (TIC) data will follow this at 4:00 p.m.
In the commodities sphere, oil prices were higher on Tuesday as increases in demand reduced surplus supplies from OPEC and the United States, though the market did not indicate big short-term moves .
Brent crude traded at around $48.88 a barrel on, up 0.95 percent, while U.S. crude was also up around $46.42 a barrel, up 0.87 percent.