Treasury yields were little changed on Thursday as investors weighed the latest economic data as well as developments in trade and geopolitics.
The 10-year Treasury yield was down less than 1 basis point at 4.251%, while the 30-year Treasury yield was down more than 2 basis points at 4.844%. The 2-year Treasury note yield was higher by more than a basis point, sitting at 3.612%.
One basis point is equal to 0.01%, and yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Yields initially ticked up slightly after the Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 17 came in at 200,000, lower than the 208,000 that economists polled by Dow Jones had estimated. Claims were 1,000 higher than the prior week's upward revision.
Later Thursday, the headline and core personal consumption expenditures price index figures for November were in line with expectations. The Commerce Department's PCE is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of the movement of prices and is closely watched by monetary policymakers.
"The reality is that economic growth is strong, stronger than the market seems to believe, and while inflation remains steady, it remains steady at a level above the Fed's target, which means that monetary policy going forward is likely to be a lot more cautious than perhaps the market expects," said Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles Investments.
Because of that strength, as well as other factors such as fiscal stimulus, Rosen anticipates that the Fed won't undergo a similar rate cut path as seen toward the end of last year, when the central bank issued three consecutive quarter percentage point cuts. At present, traders largely expect two quarter-point cuts in 2026, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
"If anything, it'll be fewer cuts than what the market is looking for — fewer than two to three, possibly two, possibly one," he said.
Elsewhere, President Donald Trump in an interview with CNBC's Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said that he may have already chosen his nominee to serve as the next chair of the Fed to replace Jerome Powell, the current central bank leader.
"I'd say we're down to three, but we're down to two," Trump said. "And I probably can tell you, we're down to maybe one, in my mind." He didn't reveal the identity of the person.
Powell recently said he was under investigation by the Department of Justice as a result of the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Trump told CNBC that he had reached some "concept of a deal" on Greenland after saying in a speech Wednesday that he would not order the seizure of the Danish territory by force.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump also said that tariffs he announced last week on eight European countries that opposed a U.S. takeover of Greenland would not go into effect.