In the coming days, the U.S. Treasury Department will hold auctions for 2-year, 5-year, and 7-year Treasury notes, along with a few weekly ones. The government holds these auctions to raise money, which helps it finance all of its obligations.
These auctions have been especially noteworthy this year because bond investors have had some concerns about the Trump administration’s tariffs and the proposed spending bill in Congress, which would add trillions of dollars to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Back in April, the Treasury Department held an auction for bonds that mature in three years. And it didn’t exactly go well.
“I think at the time I said it was arguably one of the worst ones ever,” said Lawrence Gillum, chief fixed income strategist at LPL Financial.
He said there wasn’t much demand for those Treasuries, and the investors that did show up wanted to be paid higher yields.
Gillum said investors were worried about all of the new tariffs and their potential impact on inflation. They were also concerned about the deficit and all of the new bonds the Treasury Department would have to issue in the future to finance it.
“When you have a situation where supply of something is going to increase, you tend to see prices go down, yields go up, in anticipation of just the amount of supply coming to market,” Gillum said.
And that’s exactly what happened over the next few weeks. The yield on the 10-year T-note jumped between early April and late May.
The thing is, Gillum said those higher yields started to make investors want to buy bonds. And that’s helped Treasury auctions go much more smoothly in the time since.
“Investors have shown up pretty regularly, and at the prices that the Treasury Department is willing to pay for these securities,” he said.
Another reason investors have been showing up more recently is all the new geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East, said Randy Vogel, head of fixed income at Wilmington Trust.
“Whenever that global type of risk increases, markets are going to flee to what’s still the safe haven asset of Treasuries,” he said.
And let’s not forget all of the ongoing economic risks, thanks to the president’s tariffs.
“If I don’t know whether those tariffs next month are going to be 0%, 10%, 48%, or double that, it’s very, very hard to make decisions. And that impacts real economic activity,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.
He said that’s yet another reason for investors to buy government bonds.
“Slowing economic growth, and a maybe recession, means interest rates should fall. And so that means, at least for bond market participants, who broadly agree with that, they should be buying right now,” LeBas said.
Which means Treasury auctions will probably keep going smoothly over the coming months.