REFILE-TREASURIES-Yields steady after data, before early Easter close

(Corrects paragraph 8 to remove extraneous 2023)

By Alden Bentley

NEW YORK, March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields firmed early on Thursday but ticked down slightly after the release of fourth quarter U.S. data showing faster-than-previously reported economic growth, remaining in narrow bands ahead of an early close before the Friday's market holiday.

Thanks to strong consumer spending and business investment in nonresidential structures like factories, gross domestic product increased at a 3.4% annualized rate last quarter, revised up from the previously reported 3.2% pace, the Commerce Department said in its third estimate of fourth-quarter GDP.

A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 210,000 for the week ended March 23.

The numbers did not move the needle for the bond market, which is more attuned to the Federal Reserve's favored Personal Consumption Expenditures Inflation Index report to be released on Friday. Good Friday is not a U.S. government holiday.

The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note was up 2 basis points at 4.218%.

SIFMA, the industry trade association, recommended a 2 p.m. ET close for the bond market on Thursday.

Last week the Fed left the fed funds rate in the 5.25% to 5.50% range it has been in since it stopped tightening in July.

The Fed has said it expects to lower interest rates this year and its median dot plot estimate last week still showed 75 basis points in easing for 2024. But it's in no rush to start cutting after recent reports showing inflation rising and the economy showing little sign of significant slowing.

Futures traders currently see about a 63% probability that the Fed will lower by at least 25 bp at it's June meeting.

Fed chair Jerome Powell will also participate in a moderated monetary policy discussion Friday, meaning the market won't be able to react to the two most important news events of this week until Monday.

"All the key data is actually tomorrow instead of today. It's a very strange week," said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities, in New York. "It's the age-old question: 'If PCE falls in the forest, is anyone around to hear it'."

The two-year U.S. Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was unchanged at 4.616%.

The yield on the 30-year bond was also flat at 4.363%.

A closely watched part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at -39.97 basis points, a tad more inverted than Wednesday's late level of -38.4 bp.

(Reporting by Alden Bentley; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)