Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent moved fast to calm the bond market this month. Two of the biggest names on Wall Street just moved just as fast to say it probably will not be enough. A rebuttal that landed within days of his own announcement.
The pushback lands at an awkward moment for Bessent. The national debt just hit a fresh milestone and a closely watched Federal Reserve speech is only days away. Both developments raise the stakes for whatever the Treasury decides to do next.
Interest rate strategists at Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo both said the Treasury Department's expanded bond buybacks will do little to reverse the recent jump in long-term yields. Rates on 10- and 30-year Treasuries briefly dropped after the announcement, then rose again, erasing much of the initial relief, Bloomberg reported.
Goldman Sachs strategists George Cole and William Marshall wrote in an August 21 research note that the buyback expansion "does not address what we see as the main sources of recent long-end volatility." They added that the buybacks are "unlikely to meaningfully reset rate levels even if scaled up."
Wells Fargo strategists led by Erik Nelson made a similar case in their own August 21 note, arguing that lowering long-end yields would require macroeconomic shifts rather than Treasury market operations. They pointed to a slowdown in growth and inflation, less uncertainty around Federal Reserve policy, fiscal consolidation, or a decline in investment-grade corporate bond issuance as the kinds of catalysts actually needed to move yields lower.
#strategists
The pushback lands at an awkward moment for Bessent. The national debt just hit a fresh milestone and a closely watched Federal Reserve speech is only days away. Both developments raise the stakes for whatever the Treasury decides to do next.
Interest rate strategists at Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo both said the Treasury Department's expanded bond buybacks will do little to reverse the recent jump in long-term yields. Rates on 10- and 30-year Treasuries briefly dropped after the announcement, then rose again, erasing much of the initial relief, Bloomberg reported.
Goldman Sachs strategists George Cole and William Marshall wrote in an August 21 research note that the buyback expansion "does not address what we see as the main sources of recent long-end volatility." They added that the buybacks are "unlikely to meaningfully reset rate levels even if scaled up."
Wells Fargo strategists led by Erik Nelson made a similar case in their own August 21 note, arguing that lowering long-end yields would require macroeconomic shifts rather than Treasury market operations. They pointed to a slowdown in growth and inflation, less uncertainty around Federal Reserve policy, fiscal consolidation, or a decline in investment-grade corporate bond issuance as the kinds of catalysts actually needed to move yields lower.
#strategists
1 day ago
