Why Treasury Auctions Have Wall Street on Edge | EUROtoday

The U.S. Treasury prefers its debt gross sales to be humdrum affairs. Lately, they’re sparking fireworks in markets.

Scrutiny of Treasury auctions—whereby the federal government funds operations by promoting the world’s most secure bonds to massive banks and sellers—has grown alongside their dimension. For years, many in Washington and on Wall Street assumed that buyers would purchase any variety of bonds the federal government issued, irrespective of the fiscal outlook. Testing that assumption: the sale of $20.8 trillion of latest Treasurys within the first 11 months of the 12 months—set to surpass 2020’s file of slightly below $21 trillion.