U.S. TREASURY TO BOOST LONG-TERM BOND PURCHASES IN BID TO STEADY MARKET / THE FINANCIAL TIMES

US Treasury to boost long-term bond purchases in bid to steady market

Move reflects Washington’s concerns about sharp rise in borrowing costs, investors say

Claire Jones in Washington, Emily Herbert and Ramsay Hodgson in London and George Steer in New York

The 30-year Treasury yield reached almost 5.34% on Tuesday, the highest level since 2007 © Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg

The US Treasury said it would “at least double” purchases of long-term government debt as policymakers seek to contain a sell-off that has sent borrowing costs soaring in the world’s most important bond market.

The more aggressive buyback operation affects Treasury securities maturing in 10 to 20 years and 20 to 30 years, increasing from $2bn to “at least” $4bn, the Treasury said on Wednesday.

The move comes at a time of growing strains in the $32tn US Treasury market as investors fret over the burst of inflation triggered by President Donald Trump’s Iran war and Washington’s mounting public-debt burden.

“The administration is getting nervous about the long end of the curve and wants to try to stem the decline,” said Daniel Murray, deputy chief investment officer at EFG International.

Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist at PGIM, said the move to boost buybacks was “an important signal to the market that the Treasury is concerned about the sell-off in the back end of the yield curve”.

The Treasury said on Wednesday that the increased buybacks, which will begin on September 9, reflected its “desire to provide greater liquidity support” to long-dated US debt. 

It marks a significant expansion of a programme that is designed to facilitate market function for older and less actively traded Treasuries, known as “off-the-run” securities.

US government bonds rallied sharply after the announcement, with the yield on the 30-year bond down 0.1 percentage points to 5.19 per cent. 

The yield on 10-year debt, a benchmark for trillions of dollars in assets worldwide, slid 0.06 percentage points to 4.65 per cent.

The 30-year yield reached almost 5.34 per cent on Tuesday, the highest level since 2007, in a jump that has also ricocheted around the world. 

An auction of 30-year debt last week also saw investors buy government bonds at the highest yield since 2001.

The dollar also declined following the buyback announcement, with an index of the currency against six peers sliding 0.7 per cent on Wednesday.

George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank FX Research said currency markets were “likely to be increasingly attentive to further measures intended to support the US Treasury market . . . 

The more these are perceived as distortionary to market pricing, the more the dollar is likely to weaken.”

Barclays analysts added that the Treasury’s decision to expand its buybacks just weeks after the quarterly “refunding” announcement, when it details its debt management plans, highlighted how “the recent rise in yields did catch [officials’] attention”.

A crucial test of the policy’s success will come later on Wednesday, when the Treasury will hold a $16bn auction of 20-year bonds.

Wall Street expects the agency to offset the buybacks by issuing more short-term debt, part of an effort to shift US borrowing towards Treasury bills that mature in one month to one year.

“Given the amount of issuance required to fund the deficit, this implies greater issuance at the short end of the curve,” Murray said.

Yields on three- and six-month bills rose slightly on Wednesday, reflecting expectations for more issuance on the shorter end of the curve.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is focused on keeping longer-term government borrowing costs — notably the yield on the 10-year — low.

The yield on the 10-year note is closely watched as it tends to have a greater impact on the cost of borrowing for businesses and households, heavily influencing the price of products such as residential mortgages.

However, economists warn that longer-term borrowing costs will probably remain high amid concerns about inflation and vast US deficits.

While Bessent originally pledged to cut the federal budget deficit from about 6 per cent to 3 per cent by the end of Trump’s second term, projections remain at elevated levels owing to the president’s extension of tax cuts and pledge to massively increase defence spending to $1.5tn a year.

“If you’re a medium- or long-term investor, what you really want to see to buy long bonds is an improvement in the deficit outlook,” said Steve Englander, global head of G10 FX research and North America macro strategy at Standard Chartered.