Perhaps the reason why the just concluded 7 Year auction priced quite sloppy, if not outright ugly, is because it came at a time when virtually nobody was paying attention, or otherwise bidding. Moments ago the Treasury sold $29 billion in 7 Year paper, which priced at 2.152, a notable 1.2 bps tail to the 2.140% When Issued, indicating not all was well with the internals. Sure enough, the Bid to Cover of 2.435 was well below the TTM average of 2.56, and was the lowest since November. Direct Bidders were not too excited with the paper, and as a result took down only 16.66% of the final allottment, the lowest also since November. And with Indirect taking down a tame 40.62%, this mean Dealers were forced to step up and buy 42.72% of the issue - the highest Dealer allocation since, you guessed it, November. Perhaps the only thing the auction had going is that at 2.15%, the closing yield remains decidedly low (having peaked recently at 2.32 in April), if rising modestly from the 2.01% in May which happened to be the lowest since October.
Overall, a sloppy, unexciting auction, and the result was some modest weakness across the curve.
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