Let’s be honest and admit that only those deep in the weeds of the Treasury market really cared about the Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA). But like so many other things in the past few years, markets getting vexed ahead of the announcement these days.

The QRA announcement dates are overlayed against the US Treasury 10-year yield. It turns out that size/mix of Treasury issuance is quite important with the graph showing multiple inflection points where the trend in Treasuries reverses. On cue, the 42bp surge in Treasury yields ended in line with the QRA announcement.