Treasurys remained higher early Thursday, pushing yields down, after a pair of reports showed continuing stress in the employment market while retail sales improved for the first time in seven months. Two-year notes fell 4 basis points to 0.88%. A government report said retail sales in January unexpectedly rose 1%. Excluding automobiles, sales unexpectedly rose 0.9%. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch predicted overall sales would fall 0.4%. The Labor Department said jobless claims declined by 8,000 to 623,000 in the week ended Feb. 7. Continuing claims, an indication of the difficulty of finding a new job, reached a record 4.81 million. Treasurys had been up before the reports on concerns that the smaller stimulus bill likely to be approved by Congress may not be sufficient to boost economic growth. Still to come, the Treasury Department will sell a record $14 billion in 30-year bonds , finishing off the massive amount of debt sold this week in the government's quarterly refunding.

Source