Bessent Eyes $950 Billion Treasury General Account to Supercharge Long-Bond Buybacks

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is considering tapping the Treasury General Account, which holds close to $950 billion, to fund an expanded program of long-dated bond buybacks, according to two senior Treasury officials. The move follows last week's surprise announcement that Treasury would at least double the size of its off-the-run long-end buybacks from $2 billion to a minimum of $4 billion, with Bessent signaling on CNBC the operations could grow even larger. Treasury yields fell Monday on the CNBC report about the potential use of the General Account, as investors assessed how much firepower the department could deploy to push down long-term borrowing costs ahead of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's keynote at Jackson Hole later in the week.

Analysts cautioned against overreading the move, however. One analyst told MarketWatch it does not change the fundamental picture and simply reduces the cash Treasury holds on deposit, stopping well short of the market-moving intervention some had hoped for.