An auction of 30-year Treasury debt on Thursday is the latest warning signal that demand for U.S. government bonds is sinking.
That gap between anticipated yields and the highest accepted yield is called ‘tail.’ Higher tails at auctions, in plain English, indicate government bond issuers had to entice investors with a premium over the market rate on bonds to place their debt. The messaging on weak demand comes as ‘term premium,’ a theoretical value that reflects the amount of extra yield investors are demanding to hold a 10-year Treasury, a long-term debt, hit a positive value for the first time since June 2021 late last month. It’s the compensation that investors demand for the risks of holding a long-term bond rather than continuing to roll over short-term debt.