MNI: US Treasury Maintains Issuance, Boosts Aug-Oct Buybacks

The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday it would keep nominal coupon auction sizes in August, September and October unchanged from the previous three months, matching market expectations, while boosting its buyback program to USD38 billion per quarter and widening counterparties to directly access the operations.

The department will issue USD125 billion of securities at next week's refunding, raising USD35.2 billion in new cash. Officials plan to sell USD58 billion in 3-year notes on May 5, USD42 billion in 10-year notes on August 6, and USD25 billion in 30-year bonds on August 7. The agency retained its guidance that it is "well positioned to address potential changes to the fiscal outlook and to the pace and duration of future SOMA redemptions."

"Based on current projected borrowing needs, Treasury anticipates maintaining nominal coupon and FRN auction sizes for at least the next several quarters," the statement from Treasury's Brian Smith said, repeating past guidance. 

Treasury anticipates further marginal increases in bill auction sizes in the coming days and then maintaining sizes at or near those levels through the end of September. Additional increases to Treasury bill auction sizes are anticipated in October. Treasury said it will carefully monitor market conditions and adjust its bill issuance plans as appropriate.

BUYBACKS

The Treasury Department also decided to double the frequency of long-end nominal coupon liquidity support buybacks, make a technical adjustment to the TIPS buyback buckets, increase the size of cash management buybacks and plans to allow a limited number of additional counterparties to directly access buyback operations in the first half of 2026.

These changes will increase the aggregate size of liquidity support buybacks from a maximum par amount of $30 billion per quarter to $38 billion per quarter, the statement said. 

Anticipated Auction Sizes (billions USD):