Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller is sharply criticizing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent decision to double long-dated bond buybacks, characterizing the move as an artificial suppression of yields and urging policymakers to “let the bond market speak.”
‘Price Management,’ Not Liquidity Support
On Aug. 19, the Treasury Department announced it would increase buybacks in the 10- to 30-year sector from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.
The announcement came shortly after the 30-year yield reached a 19-year high. Druckenmiller argues in The Wall Street Journal‘s op-ed that this is a dangerous intervention in a normally functioning market.
“This wasn’t liquidity management, it was price management,” he wrote, noting that trading was orderly, volatility was contained, and the market lacked any genuine dysfunction that would justify such official action.
