With the Fed buying up billions of 10 year paper 2 hours ago as we discussed earlier [2], it was only logical that the $4.8 billion gap created by the Fed's desire to monetize would be promptly closed. Sure enough, the $21 billion 10 Year reopening just priced at a new all time record yield of 1.622%, but also priced well inside the When Issued which had been trading at 1.635%: an indication of major pent up demand heading into the auction. The Bid To Cover rose from April's 2.90 to 3.06, but the most notable number was the drop in the Primary Dealer take down which only accounted for 37.2% of the auction, the lowest since December, while Indirects and Directs received 42.0% and 20.8%, the direct number being the highest since August 2011, and only the third highest in history. Pimco's fingerprints are all over this. And maybe China's as well: recall it is now a Direct bidder too, and can bypass the Primary Dealers. All in all, a scorcher of an auction. Then again, when considering the same-day round trip already observed [2], perhaps this is hardly too surprising.
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