With the U.S. financial markets closed for Presidents’ Day and with markets in China and Hong Kong still closed for the Lunar New Year, it’s a slow news day for stocks and bonds today.
But get ready for the action to resume on Tuesday with much of the attention focused on the U.S. Treasury market. The U.S. Treasury will auction $258 billion in three- and six month bills and longer maturity issues this week. Tomorrow alone will see the Treasury sell $151 billion in debt in three auctions. The sale will result in the heaviest day of T-bill supply in data that goes back to 1994.
On Wednesday The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its January 30-31 meeting. That was the central bank’s last meeting with Janet Yellen as chair.
It will be “interesting” to see how the huge supply and efforts to read the tea-leaves from the Fed meeting shift yields in the Treasury market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury finished last week at 2.87%.
