After ending the previous session moderately higher, treasuries showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Tuesday.
Bond prices spent the day lingering near the unchanged line before closing roughly flat. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged up by less than a basis point to 2.137 percent.
The choppy trading came as traders expressed continued uncertainty about the outlook for the Federal Reserve's asset purchase program.
Some Fed officials have recently suggested that upbeat economic data may lead the central bank to scale back its stimulus program within the next few meetings.
While the comments have led to an increased focus on some economic data, traders largely shrugged off a report from the Commerce Department showing a wider U.S. trade deficit in April.
The Commerce Department report showed that the trade deficit widened to $40.3 billion in April from a revised $37.1 billion in March.
Economists had been expecting the trade deficit to widen to $41.2 billion from the $38.8 billion deficit originally reported for the previous month.
Paul Ashworth, Chief U.S. Economist at Capital Economics, said the rebound by the trade deficit was "largely due to an unwinding of the distortion caused by the Chinese Lunar New Year Holiday."
Traders seemed to look past the trade deficit report to other more closely watched reports due to be released later in the week, particularly Friday's monthly jobs report.
Late in the trading day, Kansas City Fed President Esther George reiterated her support for tapering the Fed's stimulus program. Due to illness, George canceled a speech in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but she released her prepared remarks.
"In light of improving economic conditions, I support slowing the pace of asset purchases as an appropriate next step for monetary policy," George said.
She added, "History suggests that waiting too long to acknowledge the economy's progress and prepare markets for more-normal policy settings carries no less risk than tightening too soon."
Trading on Wednesday may be impacted by the release of some key economic data, including reports on private sector employment, labor productivity, and service sector activity.
The Federal Reserve is also scheduled to release its Beige Book, a report consisting of anecdotal evidence on economic conditions in each of the twelve Fed districts.
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