Some Good News for Bond Traders Stuck in Fed Waiting Game

  • Treasury buybacks, QT slowdown are ‘good backstop’ for market
  • Ebbing volatility is also a positive as yields settle in range

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C.

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
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Bond traders who are stuck in a waiting game over Federal Reserve rate policy will soon get some welcome support.

Starting on Wednesday, and for the first time since the early 2000s, the Treasury Department will launch a series of buybacks targeting seasoned and harder-to-trade debt. Then in June, the US central bank is set to begin tapering the pace of its balance-sheet unwind, known as quantitative tightening, or QT.