Mediocre 2Y Auction Prices At Highest Yield Since Feb 2025

With Treasury yields sliding 4 days in a row, today’s 2Y auction was not seen as especially concerning (certainly not as much as a week ago, when the 10Y was knocking on 4.70%’s door, vs 4.50% where it trades today). Still, while the auction did have it strong sides, it was hardly stellar.

Starting at the top, the $69BN sale of 2Y paper priced at a high yield of 4.071%, up 26bps from 3.812% a month ago, and the highest since Feb 2025. The auction also priced on the screws with the When Issued 4.071%, following three straight tailing auctions, so a modest improvement there.

The bid to cover was 2.640, which was down modestly from 2.653 a month ago, but above the 2.62 six-auction average.

The internals were in line: Indirects (aka foreign buyers) took down 57.6%, up from 56.48% a month ago but below the 57.9% recent average; and with Directs almost flat at 30.1% (down from 31.65% in April, and above the 29.3% recent average), Dealers were left holding 12.30%, up from 11.87% a month ago and just below the 6-auction average of 12.84%.

Overall, this was a forgettable auction with mediocre stats and internals. Then again, with the market trading treasuries and oil as one asset class today (while stocks do their own thing again), and sending sharply much lower on hopes that this time the Iran deal is definitely imminent (unlike all the previous times), it’s not like anyone was paying attention to bond market internals today… or frankly anything else for that matter.