Gold, stocks, and UST surged on Trump’s back-door YCC plan; USD slumped. Will it work?
Trump & Co. can’t resolve structural issues with cyclical fixes. Trump has to exit from his Iran war mess gracefully rather than stage an imaginary takeover of the SOH to bring oil, inflation expectations, and bond yields down. The Trump administration has to roll over ~$10T in debt at lower borrowing costs (coupon rate) in the coming months desperately. On Wednesday, gold and USTs surged, while US bond yields and the USD slumped as the US Treasury (TSY) Secretary Besant officially announced the intention of the US TSY to double the buyback of longer-term (10-30Y) USTs from the present $2B/operation to at least $4B/month per operation for Sep-Nov '26 (refunding QTR). The US TSY may also indicate the size of the next tranche of bond buying for the next fiscal refunding quarter on November 4, 2026. Overall, the program is officially the TSY Liquidity Adjustment Facility (TLAF), but the real purpose is to manage longer-term bond yields (10-30Y); i.e., it’s a form of back-door YCC....