Thursday, 28 March 2024
Trending

Investing

Analysis-Wall Street prepares for Treasuries mess as default looms By Reuters

Analysis-Wall Street prepares for Treasuries mess as default looms

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Wall Street entrance to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is seen in New York City, U.S., November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Saeed Azhar and Davide Barbuscia

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anxiety is increasing in parts of Wall Street that rely on Treasury securities to function, with some traders starting to avoid U.S. government debt that comes due in June and others preparing to deal with securities at risk of default.

U.S. President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy are closing in on a deal that would raise the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling for two years while capping spending on most items, as a June 1 “X date” approaches for when the Treasury Department has said it could run out of money to pay its bills.

Treasury securities are used widely as collateral across markets. A key question for market participants is how would bonds that are maturing next month be treated if a deal is not reached in time and the Treasury is unable to pay principal and interest on debt.

One such area is the $4 trillion repurchase, or repo, market, for short-term funding used by banks, money market funds and others to borrow and lend. Some counterparties, including banks, were shying away from Treasury bills maturing in June in bilateral repos, where the trade is between two parties, said an executive at a U.S. fund manager who decline to be named. There are 14 T-bills maturing in June.

Scott Skyrm, executive vice president for fixed income and repo at broker-dealer Curvature Securities, said some repo buyers or cash lenders did not want to accept any bills maturing within a year. Skyrm said stress began to appear in the market at the start of May, with some lenders refusing to accept Treasury bills that they perceived as at risk of delayed payments in some types of trades. He declined to name buyers who were not accepting T-bills.

“I don’t think counterparties want to deal with collateral around the X-date,” said Jason England, global bonds portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.

An executive at an independent broker-dealer in the repo market who declined to be named said they were still financing Treasury securities for now. Their focus, instead, was on rewiring their systems in anticipation of steps that the Federal Reserve and Treasury might take to prevent a default. The executive said they expected to work through the weekend to get their systems in place.

At least…

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at All News…