If yesterday's 3 Year auction was far stronger than expected, then today's 5 Year auction was an absolute whopper, printing moments ago at a high yield of 1.625%, 0.5bps through the When Issued, but it was the internals that were most impressive, not so much the Bid to Cover which jumped from 2.39 to 2.58, the highest since November, but the real stunner just like in yesterday 3Y auction, was the central bank, aka Indirect [5], interest because while the foreign central bank bid in yesterday's 3 Year auction were the highest since 2009, today's 67.5% Indirect takedown was the strongest on record!
[6]
And the biggest surprise: this is happening precisely one hour ahead of a potentially pre-hiking FOMC statement, usually a time when there is no violent expression of interest in the one instrument that would be whacked the most should the Fed indeed hike.
In other words, foreign central banks have made it very clear how they feel about the possibility of a Fed rate hike not only today, but for the rest of 2015.
