The US Treasury Department announced Wednesday it will repurchase as much as $6 billion in bonds maturing between 10 and 20 years during Thursday’s buyback session — three times the size of its previous operation targeting long-dated debt.
The move builds on the department’s short-term debt repurchase earlier the same day, when it bought back $12.5 billion in near-term Treasury securities.
Treasury officials had signaled last month that buyback volumes for longer-maturity bonds would expand to at least $4 billion per quarter, doubling prior levels, as part of a broader push to keep the market functioning smoothly. These operations focus on older, thinly traded issues that are harder for investors to buy and sell.
The expanded buyback plan followed a bond market decline in August that sent 30-year Treasury yields to their highest point since 2007. Speaking at an event in Texas, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attributed that selloff to investor fears that the federal government might struggle to meet its debt obligations — a narrative he dismissed as unfounded but acknowledged had taken hold of market sentiment at the time.
Bessent has framed the buyback program separately as a liquidity-support measure. In remarks last week, he said the repurchases allow banks and other financial institutions to unload harder-to-trade Treasury holdings, freeing them up to take on a larger role in upcoming auctions of newly issued government debt.
