Volatility in the once-staid $25.7 trillion market for U.S. Treasury debt has exploded this year, driven in part by doubts about investors’ ability to absorb a deluge of expected supply.
“As debt levels rise, we have no way to predict danger thresholds or the amount of debt that is simply ‘too much.’ But it’s unwise for policymakers to experiment or test where these thresholds might be,” the team said. U.S. federal government debt as a percentage of GDP has risen from 80% — already high relative to history — to nearly 100%, according to Citi’s calculations. It currently sits at its highest level since the 1940s.
Although concerns about Treasury supply have featured prominently in commentary from high-profile investors like Bill Ackman and Paul Tudor Jones, the team at Citi sees it as more of a side show for the market. “On the spending side, most federal expenditures consist of defense and entitlement spending that is politically difficult to set on a downward trajectory. Entitlement programs make up about two-thirds of all federal spending, but any changes would likely be phased in slowly . Of the remaining ‘discretionary spending,’ almost half goes toward defense which, given geopolitical events, is unlikely to be pared back any time soon.
See: Bank of England official says $1 trillion in pension fund investments could’ve been wiped out without intervention
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