Despite paying trillions in Federal taxes every year, Americans' requests for a clear, detailed breakdown of where their money goes every year, have gone unanswered and been ignored by both Republican and Democrat administrations for one simple reason: transparency has an unpleasant way of mutating into accountability, which is the scariest thing imaginable for any career politician.
Not any more.
With Bloomberg recently writing articles such as "Mnuchin to Wall Street: U.S. Is Serious About Ultra-Long Bonds", "Mnuchin Says Ultra-Long U.S. Bonds Can Absolutely Make Sense" and "Wall Street Sees Treasury Paying Up for Ultra-Long Bond Issuance", there was a tangible buildup of confusion and excitement that the US Treasury under Steven Mnuchin may follow in Europe's footsteps and announced 50, if not 100 year Treasurys in the near future.
With much of Europe and Asia, including the U.K., France, Germany and China markets closed for Labor Day, Asian stocks and the dollar rose buoyed by news that Congress had reached a deal to keep the US government funded through the end of September. S&P futures are up 4 points or 0.2%. Oil declined as rigs targeting crude in the U.S. rose for a fifteenth week and output from Libya rebounded.
Despite today's surge in global equities, which may be as much driven by the France relief rally as the unwind of recent hedges, the latest attempt to reignite the reflation rally is fading as US Treasury yields have given up on much of the overnight move, following two weaker than expected "soft data" reports, the CFNAI and Dallas Fed, released earlier today.
While Donald Trump already spoiled the surprise of the contents of the latest semiannual report from the Treasury on currency manipulation, when on Wednesday he told the WSJ that China would not be named a currency manipulator, moments ago the US Treasury confirmed just that when it published the long awaited report on "Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States" which while keeping the same six countries - China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and Switzerland - on its manipulation monitoring watch list, it said no major trading partner met the criteria