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Bessent Touts Treasury Auctions Among Best in Two Decades as 10-Year Yield Hits Highest Since 2007
Foreign investors hold about $9.3 trillion of Treasuries, close to a third of publicly held debt, and the Treasury Secretary offered that to the House on September 15 as proof of confidence while the 30-year sat at 5.32%.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Bessent told the House Financial Services Committee on September 15 that recent Treasury auctions ranked among the two most successful of the past two decades.
- Foreign holdings of US Treasuries stand at roughly $9.3 trillion, about 30 to 32 percent of all publicly held debt, with the national debt itself past $40 trillion earlier this year.
- Foreign investors bought US equities at an average 2.8 percent of GDP through June 2026, against about 2 percent of GDP going into Treasuries over the same period.
- The 10-year Treasury yield has climbed above 5 percent and the 30-year pushed to 5.32 percent, the highest 10-year level since 2007.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- cost A percentage point on the $40 trillion stock is $400 billion a year once the whole stock carries it, and every roll at current yields moves more of the stock onto that rate.
- exposure Each percentage point on the $9.3 trillion held offshore sends about $93 billion a year of coupon to holders who sit outside US jurisdiction and answer to their own finance ministries.
- constraint The faster-growing foreign flow is buying stocks in the secondary market, so Treasury still has to clear its own supply against whoever will take the next auction at the price it sets.
- contradiction Bessent calls the US bond market the developed world's strongest performer while the same record shows a 19-year high in the 10-year yield, so one set of figures supports both a confidence case and a cost case.
An auction result tells you whether the supply cleared, and at what concession to the market's prior yield. The level of that yield is a separate question. Bessent's ranking of the recent sales and a 19-year high in the 10-year [7] sit in the same testimony [1][5]. The account of that testimony does not say which auctions he meant or the measure that ranked them [12].
Set the two long yields side by side and the curve pays at most about 32 basis points for twenty additional years of maturity [6].
The 30-to-32 percent figure implies a denominator. If $9.3 trillion is that share of publicly held debt, publicly held debt is roughly $29 trillion to $31 trillion. That leaves $9 trillion to $11 trillion of the $40 trillion total outside public hands [2]. Measured against everything outstanding, foreign investors hold about 23 percent [1].
Foreign buying of equities ran 0.8 points of GDP above foreign buying of Treasuries through June 2026, 40 percent more into stocks than into bonds [3]. Of those two flows, only the smaller one finances new issuance. Cryptobriefing, which reported the testimony, wrote that stocks outpacing bonds in foreign demand outside a crisis has not happened consistently in decades [11].
The same account says that with debt above $40 trillion and no serious deficit reduction plan in view, the supply of new Treasuries is not slowing [10].
In my view these figures describe a concentration of dependence. Close to a third of publicly held debt sits with holders outside US jurisdiction [2]. The faster-growing foreign flow goes into instruments that never mature and can be sold any day [4]. The other reading is respectable. Holdings grew while yields rose, and that is what price-insensitive demand looks like. Bessent credits regulatory certainty, tax policy, trade frameworks and energy stability for the inflows [8]. He also pointed to rising volumes of dollar-denominated transactions globally as evidence that the dollar's reserve status is intact, despite Russian and Chinese efforts to cut dollar reserves [9].
The dependence reading would be wrong if foreign holdings keep climbing as a share of publicly held debt while the 10-year comes back under 5 percent. It would also be wrong if equity inflows hold near 2.8 percent of GDP through a dollar drawdown.
What to watch
- Foreign holdings data for the months after June 2026: does the $9.3 trillion keep growing now that the 10-year is above 5%?
- Bid-to-cover and tails on the next long-bond sale, tested against a 30-year at 5.32%.
- A deficit reduction plan: cryptobriefing gives the absence of one as the reason new Treasury supply is not slowing.