oggi un'altra billionata record in asta di 5y
Treasury 5-Year Note Yields Highest Since August Before Auction
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602007&sid=a54wYEqB_Yxc#
By Anchalee Worrachate and Theresa Barraclough
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury five-year
note yields traded at the highest levels in more than four months before the U.S. sells a record-tying $42 billion of the securities, the second of three sales this week totaling $118 billion.
The five-year offering follows a $44 billion sale of two- year notes yesterday that drew the weakest demand in four months. The auctions conclude with a $32 billion seven-year sale tomorrow. Treasuries of all maturities have fallen 3.7 percent this year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. That would be the worst annual performance since at least 1978, when Merrill began collecting the data.
“I hope there’s enough participation for the U.S. paper given it’s the end of the year,” said
Charles Berry, a bond trader in Stuttgart at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg. “Supply is an issue everywhere. Governments are borrowing unprecedented amounts of money and inflation will soon hit us like a sledgehammer. The saving grace for the U.S. is its benchmark status.”
The five-year
note yield rose one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 2.61 percent at 7:43 a.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. It touched 2.62 percent, the highest level since Aug. 13. The 2.125 percent security due November 2014 fell 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 97 3/4. The five-year security to be sold today yielded 2.66 percent in pre-auction trading.
The two-year notes auctioned yesterday traded at 99 28/32, for a yield of 1.09 percent, about the same as the high yield at the sale. The gap between 2-year and 10-year yields narrowed to 2.77 percentage points, from 2.80 percentage points yesterday.
Yield Curve
That spread, known as the yield curve, widened to a record 2.88 percentage points on Dec. 22 amid concern President
Barack Obama’s attempt to revive economic growth with record spending will keep the deficit at $1 trillion and damp demand at auctions of government debt
. U.S. marketable debt increased to a record $7.17 trillion in November from $5.80 trillion at the end of last year.
Indirect bidders, an investor class that includes foreign central banks, purchased 34.8 percent of two-year notes at yesterday’s sale, the lowest amount since July, and below the 45 percent average for the past 10 auctions.
The bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was 2.91, the lowest since August. Last month’s sale drew a record-low yield of 0.802 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.16.
Bargain Hunters
“We’re not structurally set up to absorb this much volume on a week like this,” said
Jim Vogel, head of agency-debt research at FTN Financial in Memphis, Tennessee. “There aren’t enough bargain hunters around to tidy things up when they get sloppy.”
The last sale of five-year notes in November drew a high yield of 2.175 percent, the lowest since May, and attracted bids for 2.81 times the amount on offer, the largest bid-to-cover ratio for the securities since September 2007, at the start of the financial crisis. Demand for U.S. debt may also wane before reports today that economists say will show declines in U.S. home prices eased in October and consumer confidence climbed this month.
Breakeven Rate
The 10-year breakeven rate, a gauge of market inflation expectations derived from a yield gap between regular and index- linked bonds, rose 1 basis point to 2.40 percentage points. It was at 2.12 percentage points at the end of November.
Property values in 20 metropolitan areas fell 7.2 percent in October from a year earlier, the smallest 12-month drop since 2007, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg before today’s report from
S&P/Case-Shiller.
The New York-based Conference Board’s
consumer confidence index rose to 53 this month from 49.5 in November, according to a separate survey. The measure reached a record low 25.3 in February.
The Fed proposed yesterday a program to sell term deposits to banks to help mop up some of the $1 trillion in excess reserves in the U.S. banking system. The proposal, subject to a 30-day comment period, “has no implications for monetary policy decisions in the near term,” the central bank said in a statement released in Washington.
“My view on the economy is more pessimistic than that of the market,” said
Luca Jellinek, a senior interest-rate strategist in London at ANZ Banking Group Ltd. “If that view is correct, Treasury yields should remain surprisingly low into next year. But in the very near-term, I will be bearish bonds because the market is not ready for that view yet.”
Holders of U.S. debt have made a return of 81 percent over the past decade, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.