Failed Treasury Trades Surge to Highest Since Financial Crisis

A shortage of benchmark 10-year notes in the market for borrowing and lending U.S. government debt caused uncompleted trades to surge last week to the highest since the financial crisis.

Total Settlement Settlement Settlement in finance refers to the process when a buyer makes payment and receives the agreed-upon services or goods. The term is used on exchanges such as New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) when security changes hands. When the asset is transferred and placed in the new buyer's name, it is considered settled. This process could take a few hours or several days after a trade is made. It depends on the clearance process. In the United States, the settlement date for marketable stocks is usually 2 Settlement in finance refers to the process when a buyer makes payment and receives the agreed-upon services or goods. The term is used on exchanges such as New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) when security changes hands. When the asset is transferred and placed in the new buyer's name, it is considered settled. This process could take a few hours or several days after a trade is made. It depends on the clearance process. In the United States, the settlement date for marketable stocks is usually 2 Read this Term delivery failures for all Treasuries, excluding inflation-protected securities, were $456 billion for the week ended March 9, the most since 2008, when fails set a record $2.7 trillion, Federal Reserve Bank of New York data show. So-called fails for 10-year notes climbed last week to $63.3 billion, from $32.3 billion the week before. It was the highest since at least April 2013, when the Fed began reporting the figures for specific maturities.

Trades involving the benchmark 10-year note were going uncompleted this month as the cost to obtain them in the repurchase-agreement market rose before the Treasury’s auction of the maturity on March 9.

The repo rates were locked near negative 3 percent for days before the sale and matched the 3 percent penalty that’s imposed on unsettled trades -- causing more traders to opt not to make good on transactions. Since the auctioned notes settled on March 15, filtering into the market, repo rates have risen back above zero and shortages have eased.

To contact the reporter on this story: Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Boris Korby at bkorby1@bloomberg.net, Mark Tannenbaum, Paul Cox

By: Liz Capo McCormick

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