After several weeks of decidedly ugly auction which saw a notable drop in foreign demand amid what we reported a week ago was rampant selling of US debt by foreign central banks, moments ago the Treasury sold 3Y notes in what may have been the best auction since the start of the war.

Just after 1pm, the US treasury sold $58BN in 3Y notes at a high yield of 3.897%, up sharply from 3.579% a month ago and the highest since last June's 3.972%. More importantly, the auction stopped through the When Issued 3.909% by 1.2bps, the biggest stop through since Feb 2025 and the 7th stop through in the past 8 auctions.

The bid to cover bounced nicely from last month's 2.546 to 2.682, the highest since November. 

The internals were even stronger: indirects, or foreign central banks, came back in droves after aggressively selling US paper in recent week, and were allotted 74.8% of the auction - the highest since Sept 2024, and the second highest on record.

And with Directs awarded just 11.9%, the lowest since Sept 2024, Dealers were left holdings 13.3% or roughly in line with the recent average of 12.3%.

Overall this was a blockbuster 3Y auction, and one of the stronger for the tenor on record, although with every push higher in oil moving yields along with it, we doubt that the market cares much about the quality of today's issuance.