Bonds: US Treasuries leap on Brexit concern

These were the movements in the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

US: 1.64% (-5bp)

UK: 1.23% (-1bp)

Germany: 0.02% (-1bp)

France: 0.39% (+0bp)

Italy: 1.38% (-0bp)

Spain: 1.43% (+1bp)

Japan: -0.14% (-2bp)

Portugal: 3.10% (+4bp)

Greece: 7.49% (+1bp)

Sovereign bond yields were mostly higher again at the end of the week, as investors looked past strength in Friday's economic data, choosing instead to focus on heightened uncertainty around the EU referendum and expectations in some corners for slower economic growth going forward.

The biggest advance in prices was seen in the US Treasuries market, with the gains quickly piling up after the results of the latest ORB poll conducted on behalf of The Independent - published after the London close - revealed a ten-point lead for the 'Leave' campaign, with support for Bexit at 55%, four percentage points more than in the last such poll.

Uncertainty surrounding Brexit also left its mark on the latest set of construction sector spending figures, according to economists.

Output in the sector bounced back by 2.5% month-on-month in April, ONS figures showed, but failed to recoup all of March's 3.7% collapse.

"New private housebuilding, which rose 2.7% month-to-month in April and increased 5.7% year-over-year, remains a lone bright spot. But for now, this boost to the overall sector is being fully offset by the impact of both Brexit risk on industrial construction and the fiscal squeeze on public sector and infrastructure investment," Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a research note sent to clients.

On a lone bright note, according to the Bank of England's quarterly Inflation Attitudes Survey, inflation expectations one-year ahead in the UK rose from 1.8% in February to 2.0% in May.

Acting as a backdrop, the Universisity of Michigan's preliminary gauge of US consumer sentiment for June beat forecasts for a retreat to 94.0, dipping instead from 94.7 at the end of May to 94.3 at the beginning of June.

"The stability in consumer sentiment supports the view that the slowdown in May job growth was not a reflection of a broad-based downturn across the economy. Should job growth bounce back, as we expect it will, sentiment and spending should be key beneficiaries," Barclays's Jesse Hurwitz said in a research note sent to clients.

The US federal government deficit printed at $52.5bn for May (consensus: $56.0bn), which was well down on the $84.1bn seen one year ago, albeit entirely due to 'positive' calendar effects, Barclays pointed out.

Back in the euro area, industrial production in France and Italy raced ahead by 1.2% month-on-month and 0.5% month-on-month in April, respectively, easily outpacing market forecasts.

However, "despite the expected positive news for the month of April, Eurozone industrial production should remain relatively weak over Q2," Clemente de Lucia, Eurozone economist at BNP Paribas, told clients.

"This supports our view that [euro area] GDP growth is likely to slow in Q2. We see GDP growth decelerating to 0.2% quarter-on-quarter from 0.5% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of 2016".