Shortage Of Short Paper

Here comes the thumping of the bond market. Barclays report by Joseph Abate out discussing the shortage of short paper, which could wreak havoc on T-Bills. As many readers know today a 300 bps fee is implemented for fails (incomplete delivery) which means many dealers will simply sit on paper, making shorting that much more difficult, and we could see negative T-Bill rates as soon as the next few days. All we need now is illiquidity in the bond market to follow the joke that equity liquidity has become to put a cherry on top of this utterly broken market. Either way, this will make it even more fun for the Fed to follow through with its QE strategy.

From Barclays

A shortage of short paper

A scarcity of short-dated paper, such as Treasury bills and agency discount notes, is pushing yields lower and creating difficulties in the money market. The fails fee is likely to make bills a little scarcer as dealers become more reluctant to short issues and instead maintain larger long positions.

• A reduction in net new bill and agency discount supply this spring has been accompanied by a sharp decline in short-term yields.
• In recent months, dealers have grown more leery of shorting bills and discount notes. In the case of bills, the new fails fee is expected to make the dealer community even less willing to short bills.
• To pick up yield, money market funds will need to expand the types of assets they invest in – moving away from bills, repo, and discount notes and into commercial paper.

Less supply

The availability of short-dated, super safe paper has diminished lately – disappearing from the Treasury and agency markets and causing yields on bills and discount notes to fall sharply. Treasury bill supply (net of the SFP program) has decreased $4bn in April, while the decline in supply has been particularly acute in the agency discount market, where net new supply has plunged by $100bn between January and March, or 9%. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in a steep drop in market yields, with, for instance, 3- and 6-month Treasury bill yields both declining about 10bp since the start of April.

In the case of discount notes, the drop-off in supply is more regulatory, and, therefore, is likely to be more permanent than otherwise – the agency regulators are encouraging the companies to reduce their reliance on short-term financing. The permanency of the drop-off in Treasury bill supply is a bit less certain. Bill supply typically declines in April as tax flows pick up, enabling the Treasury to retire some outstanding short-term debt. The lack of clear guidance (so far) about the prospects for the Treasury’s SFP program is compounding the supply outlook uncertainty.

Changed behavior

The reduction in supply of both types of short-term instruments has altered trading behavior among dealers and money fund managers. As Figure 1 reveals, dealers typically had small short or flat positions in Treasury bills until recently, when they began boosting their inventories. Treasury bills now account for more than half of dealer long Treasury positions. At the same time, dealers have grown leery of lending Treasury bills. The volume of bills trading in the repo market has declined about 40% since last spring. Likewise, dealers have been forced to cut their agency discount note holdings amid strong customer demand (from MMFs) – trimming inventories by about 50% to around $30bn since last summer. Other data indicate that prime money funds have increased their holdings of agency discount paper by 2 percentage points to 14% (or roughly $60bn) since the start of the year.

Chased away

There are few indications that this changed behavior is likely to abate any time soon. The unwillingness to lend Treasury bills is projected to be compounded by the implementation of the fails (or incomplete delivery) fee tomorrow [TD: today]. Since Treasuries are yielding so little and the 300bp fee is so punitive, dealers are expected to hold onto their Treasury bills – keeping them out of the repo market if there is any likelihood that the transaction might fail. And given the richness in bills, they are also likely to increase their long bills positions from the current $40bn. Ironically, the fails fee, which is meant to promote market liquidity, may, in fact, have the opposite effect – reducing liquidity in the bills sector and forcing money funds into the increasingly rich repo and discount note market.

Money funds have a pretty limited set of alternatives in the current environment for higher yield – they either need to lengthen the average maturity of their holdings or take on more credit risk. One increasingly attractive substitute is the commercial paper market. And although prime money funds have reduced their Tier 1 CP holdings from 41% to 39% since late January, they have become increasingly interested in terming out their existing paper holdings (for instance, moving from 1- to 3-month paper) and expanding the list of “acceptable names”.

This interest has contributed to the plunge in CP rates – for secured and unsecured paper – since January as money funds are essentially being chased out of repo, discount notes, and bills. We expect this to accelerate near term as more money funds become comfortable returning to the CP market as financial market conditions stabilize. Money funds could easily increase their CP shares back above 45% by year-end – which assuming (perhaps heroically) that prime balances hold steady, would result in net new demand for CP of $115bn.