Treasury’s record-size $64 billion sale of 5-year notes meets so-so demand

Treasury’s biggest-ever auction of 5-year notes was met with somewhat middling results, acting as a test of the market’s appetite for a continuing supply of government debt.

The 1 p.m. Eastern time sale resulted in indirect bidders taking 63.5%, or below the norm, and a bid-to-cover ratio that came in around the average seen over the last couple of months, according to Lawrence Gillum, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based chief fixed-income strategist for broker-dealer for LPL Financial.

Treasury auctions have gained greater scrutiny recently because of questions around whether investors would keep stepping up to buy government debt, regardless of the U.S. fiscal outlook. Monday afternoon’s sale followed a $63 billion auction of 2-year notes earlier in the day which produced decent results, Gillum said via phone.

Treasury yields remained slightly higher on the day soon after the results of the second auction came in, with the 2-year rate
BX:TMUBMUSD02Y
trading around 4.73% and the 5-year yield at roughly 4.33%.

Future 5-year auctions are about to get bigger, growing to $67 billion in March and an estimated $70 billion in the second quarter, according to Gillum. Meanwhile, Monday morning’s sale of 2-year notes was the largest for that maturity since 2016, and the sizes of upcoming sales for that part of the Treasury market should keep growing over the next two months, he said.