I will admit to a little Scott Bessent man-crush from a purely intellectual standpoint.

But I find this press release from the Treasury perturbing. Simply said, the “market” is even bigger the Treasury department. No group of wise men has ever consistently implemented a “we know better” methodology to control any market and attain an outcome that was originally envisioned, hence “we are going to by the long-end of the Treasury market because we don’t like yields going up” neatly whacked the dollar, and confused a lot more people than those numbered who thought it was fun to day-trade yields going down on the “signal.”

Treasury Announces Increased Sizes of Nominal Long-End Liquidity Support Buybacks Beginning September 9

August 19, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The U.S. Department of the Treasury is increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector). The current maximum size of $2 billion per operation will be at least $4 billion per operation.

This change is effective September 9, 2026 and will be in effect for the remainder of this refunding quarter (through November 4, 2026). Treasury will provide more information about future buyback sizes at the next Quarterly Refunding, scheduled for November 4, 2026.

This increase in buyback operation sizes reflects Treasury’s desire to provide greater liquidity support in longer-dated nominal sectors where there is consistent strong sponsorship from market participants, as evidenced by the significant volume of high-quality offers Treasury routinely receives in longer-dated buyback operations.

An updated tentative Treasury buyback schedule will be released at a later date.

And if you have to go on CNBC to sell it with the argument that “part of it is signaling here and to show that we believe that the yields don’t reflect the underlying fundamentals…” you are know you are on a slippy intellectual path.

All of which makes the Warsh’s decision at the Federal Reserve to shut their collective pie hole and just watch what we do vs what we might or might not be saying seem like genius.

And funny, Bessent hails from the womb of Soros, whose most celebrated bet was actually proving my point.

Unnecessary and unintended consequences ahead, which is not ideal with all else being equal generally overvalued and extended.