It appears from the Treasury's announcements and the Treasury's Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) recommendations that we will shortly see Treasury FRNs. While details remain murky (what maturities, the underlying index, reset frequency, and so on) we would be surprised if they did not after all this analysis and the potential problems they may face. Given the weight of short-dated maturing Treasury debt, if the Treasury were roll/term this debt out at the same pro-rata distribution of maturities as it has currently, then the weighted average maturity of their debt would rise significantly. While avoiding the short-term limit of zero-date issuance that many European sovereigns face is a positive clearly, the problem for the Treasury lies in the non-domestic (read Fed) demand is waning significantly for any longer-dated Treasuries (while bid-to-covers on Bills remain very high and active for foreign buyers). FRNs would implicitly provide the lender with upside coupon on a rise in rates (a potential plus for foreign demand given their angst and the low level of rates priced into the market) and would benefit the Treasury by reducing potential demand issues at the long-end (and potentially offering the Treasury upside if rates stayed low for longer). The bottom line is that the structural decline in the stock of global high-quality government bonds, coupled with an increase in demand for non-volatile liquid assets, should make U.S. government issued FRNs extremely attractive. Of course, the benefits to the Treasury from issuing FRNs also relies significantly on the Fed's monetary policy stance - savings are likely to be greater when the change in the funds rate is negative, and especially when such change is more negative than the expectations priced into forwards (and it seems reasonable to assume that the risk to short-rates is somewhat one-sided against the Treasury FRN).
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The weighted-average maturity of Treaury debt will rise significantly (above) if current debt is termed out at the current distribution of maturities and that could be a problem (below) given the changes in demand for longer-term Treasury debt (especially if we remove the Fed from the picture). Treasury FRNs could fill this gap with short (say 2-3Y) maturity deals that have attractiveupside potential for foreign and domestic buyers...or perhaps it is a confirming signal from the Treasury that rates will be super low for a super long time.
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And here is the full TBAC Treasury FRN Pitchbook: