U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent came to office blasting his predecessor for trying to re-engineer the world’s largest bond market. Last week he took a stab at it himself.
By buying back a swath of long-term U.S. debt, which will require selling more short-dated securities, Bessent said Thursday he’ll be doing “what I would call a Treasury twist.” It was a nod to the Federal Reserve’s famous 1960s plan to rejigger Treasury yields. Right now, Bessent said, those yields are out of whack with “equilibrium” levels.
And twist Treasuries did — for a day. Yields on the long bonds dropped sharply on Wednesday after the plan was announced. But then they climbed straight back up. Bessent’s favored 10-year benchmark closed the week at 4.73%, near the highest since he took office.
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