Scott Bessent discusses bond-market strategy with Stanley Druckenmiller after public criticism

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has spoken with legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller following Druckenmiller’s pointed public criticism of Bessent’s decision to double the size of long-dated bond buybacks. The conversation between the two men, who once worked side by side at Soros Fund Management, comes at a moment when the 30-year Treasury yield recently hit its highest level in 19 years and the US national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. The buyback gambit and the backlash On August 19, Bessent announced that the Treasury would increase its long-dated bond buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation, targeting maturities in the 10- to 30-year range. The buybacks are scheduled to run from September 9 through November 4. Bessent framed the move as a liquidity management tool. Yields staged a brief rally after the announcement before climbing right back up, settling near 4.71% on the 10-year and roughly 5.23% on the 30-year. Then came Druckenmiller. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on August 24, the billionaire investor argued that the buyback program wasn’t really about liquidity at all. It was, in his view, an attempt to manage bond prices ...