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March 7, 2024 • 13 mins

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a US
Treasury auction failed? In other words, what would happen if
the US government tried to borrow money and there were
not enough lenders there to lend them the money they
wanted to borrow. While many people think this is a
scenario that could absolutely never happen, especially because we have

(00:20):
something called the Federal Reserve that prints money, if we
take a look at a couple key pieces of data
from recent Treasury auctions over the last few months, it
is becoming a parent. We are actually getting closer and
closer to that becoming a reality. In October of twenty
twenty three, a thirty year Treasury auction had a three
point seven basis point tail and dealers were left with

(00:44):
holding eighteen percent of the flow. And don't worry if
you don't know what any of that means. I'm going
to explain extremely simply why all of that is a
terrible sign for US Treasury auctions. But first we have
to see that Just a month later, in November of
twenty twenty three, the thirty year Treasury had an even
worse auction, with a tale of five point three basis

(01:06):
points and dealers left holding twenty four point seven percent
of the issue. But it's not just the thirty year auctions,
because in January of this year, the US Treasury had
trouble with their five year note auction that had a
two basis point tail and a bid to cover ratio
of two point three and most recently, in February of

(01:26):
twenty twenty four, the twenty year US Treasury had a
tale of three point three basis points, which was its
largest on record. Dealers were left holding twenty one percent
of the auction and foreign bidders dropped to sixty percent
from November's level of seventy four percent. But that's a
bunch of mumba jumbo, a bunch of industry jargons. So

(01:48):
what in the world does that all mean. Don't worry,
I've got you. When the US government wants to borrow money,
they do so through the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department
is the one that will borrow so by issuing bonds
that we call treasury bonds or in other words, treasuries,
and they do this by holding an auction. Essentially, the
US Treasury says, hey, we want to borrow let's say

(02:11):
a billion dollars and we want to pay let's say
four percent on the billion dollars that we're going to borrow.
There are two groups of people that can participate in
this auction. There are individuals and there are institutions. Individuals
like you and I can line up if we want to,
and we can say either yes, I would like to
loan you money, Uncle Sam, at four percent, or we

(02:34):
can walk away and not participate. But those are our
only two choices. We can opt in or opt out. Institutions,
on the other hand, have a third choice. Institutions can
opt in to the four percent that the government is
trying to borrow at, or they can opt out. Or
they have the third option of saying, we want to
lend to you, uncle Sam, but only if we can

(02:56):
do so at a higher rate than what you're asking.
So maybe institutions say, I'll lend you money at four
point zero one percent or four point zero two percent. Well,
just like any borrower, you're going to go with the
person who offers you the lowest rate at least first.
And I say first, because for you and me, we
may only need one lender when we're trying to borrow money.

(03:16):
The US government has a pretty big appetite for borrowing,
so most of the time they're going to soak up
all of the individuals and all of the institutions that
line up and say, hey, we're willing to lend to
you at the rate that you request it. Their appetite
is pretty big, so they're going to burn through all
of those lenders first. After they've borrowed all of the

(03:37):
money from everybody that agrees to the original rate, they'll
probably still need to borrow some and then they'll look
to the institutions who have offered to lend at a
higher rate. They'll start from the bottom and work their
way up until they have borrowed everything they need for
that auction. So if they start off wanting to borrow
one billion dollars and they can get five hundred million

(03:59):
of it at the they wanted, let's say four percent,
now they have five hundred million left over they need
to borrow from institutions who are asking for a higher rate.
They'll start at the lowest rate and work their way
up until they have borrowed enough. The key thing to
know about these auctions, though, is that everybody in the
end actually walks away with the same exact rate, and

(04:19):
that's the rate at which the last person got to
lend to the government. And so if that last person,
that last institution in line lending to the government, gets
to lend at let's say four point zero five percent,
then the US government will have to pay everybody that
exact same rate. Everybody that participated in that auction gets

(04:40):
what's called the high yield. The difference between what the
government wanted to borrow at let's say four percent and
what they ended up borrowing at let's say four point
zero five percent is called a tail. Sometimes auctions go
with zero tail, which means they're able to borrow as
much as they wanted to borrow at the rate they
wanted to borrow at. And sometimes auctions happen with small tales. Recently,

(05:02):
we've been seeing more and more auctions happening with larger
and larger tales. In October, the thirty year had a
three point seven basis point tail, In November, the thirty
year had a five point three basis point tail, and
in February the twenty year had a three point three
basis point tail, which was the twenty year's largest tail
on record. Obviously, the larger the tail, the worse the auction.
If you were trying to borrow at ten percent, but

(05:24):
you could only get lenders to approve you for eleven
or twelve or thirteen percent, that wouldn't be good for you.
It's the same thing for the government. And a large
tail can signal a couple of things about the financial system.
Number one, it can signal weak demand for one reason
or another, lenders just don't want to lend as much
money to the United States government. Number two, it could
signal lack of faith in the government's fiscal situation, which

(05:46):
means I don't trust that you'll be able to pull
your way out of this without causing significant inflation, so
I'm not going to lend at the lower rate. I'll
only lend if I can get a higher rate. Number three,
it could signal a lack of liquidity in the financial system,
meaning maybe somebody's out there that would like to lend
at the government's requested rate, but they just don't have
the cash on hand the reserves available in order to

(06:06):
do that lending. And finally, could also signal a lack
of actual lenders in the system, like when foreign lenders
stop participating and there's just a lack of money available
because there's less lenders in total, And over the last
couple of quarters, it's become clear that this is a
recurring theme. We're seeing larger and larger tales happen at
a more frequent pace than we have in the past.

(06:27):
So let's talk about three questions that we have to
answer because of this. Number one, why is this happening?
Why are we seeing larger and larger tales? Number two,
when or will it get worse? Is this a deteriorating
situation or is this something that has just passed? And
number three, what would happen in the case of a
worst case scenario, which would be a failed Treasury auction?

(06:49):
And there's much more about this than I can cover
in a quick YouTube video, And so on Thursday, March seventh,
I'm going to be hosting a completely free, live online
event talking about this but also how it fits together
in the context of everything else happening right now with
the Federal Reserve trying to fight inflation, but also is
going to have to be the one to be there

(07:11):
to save the financial system when this starts to break things.
We're going to be looking at all of that together
in context with the broader long term debt cycle. Because
these things have played out many times throughout history. There's
a pattern at play here, and we're seeing it play
out again right now, which gives us a better idea
of what to expect moving forward. And above all, we're
also going to be talking about how to profit off

(07:32):
of everything that's happening right now. It's going to be
about a one hour event, so make sure you say
a side time on your calendar. It's gonna be on
the evening of March seventh, and it's actually limited in space.
There's only five hundred slots available, so if you are interested,
don't wait. Link is in the description below. The reason
why the Treasury auctions are getting worse and worse right

(07:53):
now has to do with a couple of reasons. Number One,
foreign lenders are not participating as heavily as they used it.
See in this recent February auction, foreign bidders drop to
under sixty percent, whereas they used to be up at
words of seventy four percent in November. Another reason this
is happening is because the Federal Reserve so far is
still doing quantitative tightening. Quantitative tightening is the process by

(08:16):
which the Federal Reserve allows its balance sheet to decline.
A lot of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet is made
up of US treasuries, which means the government owes money
to the Federal Reserve. Quantitative tightening is when that money
gets paid back. The Federal Reserve doesn't take all of
those dollars and lend them right back to the US government. Instead,

(08:36):
they allow some of that debt to get fully paid off.
Those dollars don't just sit on the Fed's balance sheet,
they just get destroyed. They cease to exist. So as
the Federal reserves balance sheet moves down, that represents less
and less liquidity in the financial system and the government
has to find new sources to borrow that money from.
The third reason why is because the federal government is
actually ramping up how much money it is borrowing. So

(08:59):
while the federal reason is not there to be as
big of a lender, and while foreign lenders are not
there to be as big of a lender, the government
is actually trying to borrow even more despite the fact
that there's less lenders. So that's why this is happening
right now. So the second question is this going to
continue to get worse, at least in the near term.
We are very likely to see continuing bad auctions as

(09:22):
long as the federal government is borrowing at the long
end of the curve, auctioning off twenty year treasuries or
thirty year treasuries. Liquidity is simply drying up for debt
like this, especially considering the growing likelihood that we are
entering into a new higher inflation environment for the long term. However,
the government currently can borrow at the short end of

(09:43):
the curve pretty much anything under a year without having
to worry about liquidity issues. And this is because there
are still about five hundred billion dollars in excess cash
in the financial system that's sitting in the reverse repo facility.
And so if the government continues it's borrowing at the
short end by issuing tea instead of borrowing at the
long end with things like twenty or thirty year treasuries,

(10:04):
they'll continue to suck more and more cash out of
the reverse repo facility until it's drained. Now, this five
hundred billion dollars could go very quickly. There are times
when the reverse repo facility drops very quickly, or there
are times like right now, when it kind of stagnates
and doesn't really drop at all. But given the issues
with the government borrowing at the long end and the
lack of issues with borrowing at the short end, they'll

(10:26):
likely continue leaning on the short end with things like
T bills for the majority of their financing needs, which
means that it's just a matter of when, not a
question of if the reverse repot facility gets completely drained,
and once that happens, the government will lose yet another
source to borrow from and they won't have a specific
area of the yield curve they'll be able to lean

(10:46):
on for their financing needs, which means we are likely
to see an acceleration of issues in the treasury market,
not a passing of these issues. This will have the
effect of pushing interest rates much higher, draining liquidity out
of the finnancial system, and increasing the problems that many
small banks are facing right now, which means the last
question here that we have to deal with is what

(11:08):
happens if it does push things to the breaking point?
What if a treasury auction happens and it fails. A
failed treasury auction simply means that the government tries to
borrow a specific amount of money and not enough people
line up to lend to them. For instance, if they
wanted to borrow one billion dollars but only nine hundred
million dollars lined up to be lent to them, it

(11:29):
doesn't matter what rate the lenders are asking for. It's
a failed auction because they tried to borrow a certain
amount and couldn't. Not only that, but that auction would
probably have a massive, historic sized tail because that last
lender that lined up could technically theoretically ask for any
rate and they'd get it. A failed treasury auction, however,

(11:50):
does not mean that the government defaults. Federal government has
their version of a checking account called the Treasury General
Account that is currently sitting above seven hundred billion dollars,
which which means if they do have a failed auction,
it'll certainly be bad for treasury markets and probably the
stock market as well. We're probably going to see massive
dislocation and disorderly conduct all throughout financial markets, as the

(12:12):
safest asset in the world just experienced a failed auction.
But it doesn't mean a default. They'll simply just need
to spend some of the money from their checking account
the Treasury General account to make up the difference, and
at that point we are very likely to see a
return to quantitative easing, where the Federal Reserve starts to
increase its balance sheet again instead of decreasing it like

(12:32):
it's been doing for the past few years. That's where
they print money, use that newly printed money to buy
treasuries from banks, so that banks can then turn around
take that new cash and loan it to the government
at the end of the day. This is the only option,
it's the only way forward. Government borrowing is not slowing
down anytime soon. It is only a matter of time
before they tap out the liquidity in the markets, and

(12:53):
we need the money printer to fire up yet again,
which means the government will be able to borrow at
whatever rates they need because they're essentially borrowing and directly
from the money printer. But for everybody else like you
and I, that'll push up inflation because the government will
be spending money into existence again. Prices will go up,
which means lending rates and borrowing rates for everybody else
like us will actually go up. We are in a

(13:15):
new phase of the long term debt cycle. Everything we're
seeing playing out right now very much mirrors what happened
in the nineteen forties through about nineteen eighty. This is
going to be very different that what has happened for
the last forty years, which took place from about nineteen
eighty through twenty twenty. The rules of investing and making
money they change given where we're at in this long

(13:36):
term cycle. We're going to be discussing all of that
and much much more in this free live event webinar
that we're having on March seventh. Mark your calendars. It's
going to be about an hour long, completely free. There's
only five hundred slots available though link is in the
description below. Don't wait, sign up now, see you there
as always, Thanks so much watching. Have a great day.
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