WASHINGTON �� Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin put to rest for now the idea bubbling in the $14.2 trillion Treasurys market that the government might introduce ultra-long-term debt sales.
"We've done a bunch of research and reached out and at least as of now, we don't see a lot of demand for it," Mnuchin said in an interview. He initially thought the "concept of ultra-long bonds made sense for us to explore."
He didn't write the notion off completely, saying it may work under some scenarios.
"If we could issue ultra-long bonds at the same yield as 30-year bonds, it makes a lot of sense for us to extend the duration," he said. "If it turns out there's a big premium to issue ultra-long bonds, there's no reason for us to do that."
"This is for now the death knell of the ultra-longs," said Thomas Simons, a money-market economist at Jefferies. "It would be difficult to see a path forward given these comments in the near-term."
The Treasury Department is scheduled to make its quarterly refunding announcement on Wednesday laying out the supply of longer-term debt it plans to sell to meet the government's financing needs.
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(Liz Capo McCormick contributed to this report.)
