After first issuing $15 billion in two-year
floating rate Treasury notes (floaters) on January 29, 2014, the United States Treasury has continued to see strong demand in each subsequent $13 billion reopening. In the current market environment, money market investors continue to be strong adopters of
floating rate securities backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. In an update to the evolution of this market, the Treasury auctioned its second new issue on April 29, 2014. Now, with two floating rate securities outstanding, I thought investors would be interested to hear what I believe will be next for the market and why it may make sense for certain investors to increase allocations to this new sector of the fixed income market.
Market Cap and Demand Growing Nicely
When the newly issued security settled on April 30, the
market capitalization for floating rate Treasuries had grown to more than $56 billion outstanding in four months
1. While this amount represents only a small fraction of U.S. government debt, the $750 billion market for
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities had only $15 billion of debt outstanding after the first four months of issuance. That said, I continue to believe that floaters represent an important way for the Treasury to increase the overall
maturity profile of its debt, while addressing the drop in
money market issuance and investor concerns about rising short-term
interest rates in the U.S. For these reasons, WisdomTree was one of the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) sponsors to launch a product,
USFR, that invests exclusively in these securities. Although asset levels (and yields) remain low, I believe these securities could make a great deal of sense in investor portfolios once interest rates begin to rise.
Grading the Most Recent Auction
At the April 29 auction, the $15 billion in freshly offered securities drew in bids that were 4.64 times the amount up for auction
2. Put another way, the Treasury received bids for approximately $69.6 billion in securities for a $15 billion supply. This
bid-to-cover ratio of 4.64x approached similar interest for the Treasury bill auction on the same day and was much higher than the ratios seen for recent Treasury auctions of
fixed-rate coupon bonds. While completely adequate, the Treasury has seen the bid-to-cover ratio of only 2.95x for the $701 billion in fixed coupon debt issued so far in 2014. If I were to assign a letter grade to the most recent floating rate Treasury auction, it would be a “B” because of the strong investor interest implied by the bid-to-cover.
Talking briefly about the freshly issued security’s characteristics, the
high-discount margin at the auction was 0.069%. This implies that for the life of this two-year note, this security will be priced based on this margin above the most recently auctioned three-month Treasury bill. By way of review, we discussed briefly the mechanics of these securities in a previous
blog post.
U.S. Floating Rate Treasury Note
Catalysts for Investment
In my view, floating rate Treasuries make sense in the current market environment for investors looking for a cash-like alternative with very little
interest rate risk and virtually zero credit risk. Given that short-term interest rates are at all-time lows and the Federal Reserve (Fed) has stated that it could be at least a year before it begins hiking rates, it may not make sense for investors to devote a large portion of their portfolios to these securities.
However, this will not always be the case. I believe that once the market has fully digested
tapering and starts to focus on the timing of the first round of interest rate hikes by the Fed, the value of these securities will begin to show their worth compared to money market securities and other longer-term fixed income securities. Given the weekly reset, the floaters should adjust more quickly than Treasury bills and will likely be spared the potential losses experienced by two-year
Treasury notes as the market adjusts to future hikes in the
federal funds rate.
1Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury
2Source: Bloomberg
Important Risks Related to this Article
There are risks associated with investing, including possible loss of principal. Securities with floating rates can be less sensitive to interest rate changes than securities with fixed interest rates, but they may decline in value. The issuance of floating rate notes by the U.S. Treasury is new and the supply will be limited. Fixed income securities will normally decline in value as interest rates rise. The value of an investment in the Fund may change quickly and without warning in response to issuer or counterparty defaults and changes in the credit ratings of the Fund’s portfolio investments. Due to the investment strategy of this Fund, it may make higher capital gain distributions than other ETFs. Please read the Fund’s prospectus for specific details regarding the Fund’s risk profile.