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Article · 2026-09-24 · 7 min read · Government bonds and rates · World and macro

The seven-year note sells at 5.085 percent with firmer demand

Treasury's results sheet shows 2.42 dollars bid for every dollar sold and the dealers left with an eighth of the awards, while Philadelphia Fed President Anna Paulson says modest further tightening may be warranted, jobless claims fall to 197,000 and Freddie Mac's mortgage rate crosses 7 percent.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

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The auction, from Treasury's own sheet

At one o'clock on Thursday 24 September the Treasury sold 44 billion dollars of seven-year notes at a high yield of 5.085 percent, according to its results sheet, on a note that carries a 5 percent coupon and matures on 30 September 2033. The median bid was 5.019 percent and the lowest accepted 4.900; 91.11 percent of the bids at the high yield were filled, and the notes were priced at 99.504596 per hundred. ^{[1, 3]}

Bidders offered 106.6 billion dollars for the 44.0 billion on sale, a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.42 by Treasury's own arithmetic. Of the 43.5 billion awarded to competitive bidders, the primary dealers took 5.4 billion, or 12.5 percent, direct bidders 13.2 billion, or 30.3 percent, and indirect bidders 24.9 billion, or 57.2 percent; the Federal Reserve's own account added 6.6 billion on top, and 519 million went to noncompetitive bidders. ^{[1, 3]}

That is a firmer result than Wednesday's five-year sale on the same kind of sheet: the five-year drew 154.9 billion of bids for 70.0 billion, a cover of 2.21, and the dealers were left with 11.0 billion of the 69.7 billion awarded to competitive bidders, 15.8 percent, against 12.5 percent on Thursday. The sheets record the demand and say nothing about why it differed. ^{[1, 2]}

The curve, on Treasury's own record

Treasury's daily par yield curve closed Thursday with the two-year at 4.87 percent, the five-year at 5.03, the seven-year at 5.10, the ten-year at 5.18, the twenty-year at 5.53 and the thirty-year at 5.47, according to the department's published rates. On Wednesday the same points were 4.85, 4.99, 5.05, 5.11, 5.45 and 5.40; on 16 September, the day the Fed raised its rate, they were 4.74, 4.86, 4.94, 5.01, 5.39 and 5.35. ^[4]

On that record, which the department publishes back to 1990, Thursday's ten-year rate is the highest close since 6 July 2007, when it stood at 5.19; the five-year has not closed as high since 12 July 2007, the seven-year since 9 July 2007, and the twenty-year since 14 June 2004, when it was 5.59. The thirty-year's 5.47 matches its close of 13 February 2002, and Treasury published no thirty-year rate between 15 February 2002 and 9 February 2006, so its own curve cannot say where the rate stood in those four years. ^{[4, 5, 6, 7]}

Yahoo Finance reported the thirty-year yield at 5.43 percent during the session, which it called the highest since 2004, and the ten-year at its highest since 2007; the difference from Treasury's figures is the hour, since the department's curve is read at the close of the day. ^[8]

The Fed's voices, on one day

Anna Paulson, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and a voter on policy this year, said in remarks opening the bank's fintech conference that she had supported last week's quarter-point increase and that, 'looking ahead, if conditions evolve as I expect, some modest further tightening may be warranted.' Underlying inflation 'is running in a range of about 2.5 to 3 percent, well above our 2 percent target,' she said; the unemployment rate 'currently sits at 4.1 percent,' and consumption grew at an annualized 3.4 percent in the second quarter. Bloomberg reported her line that 'the best I can say about underlying inflation this year is that it hasn't gotten worse.' ^{[9, 10]}

In London the same day, John Williams of the New York Fed told a conference of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that 'it's likely that another rate hike may be appropriate by the end of the year. That seems to me a reasonable way of thinking about it,' adding 'but we have to see,' according to Reuters, which counted 16 of 18 policymakers signalling at least one more increase this year in last week's projections. Yahoo Finance reported that Governor Michael Barr had said on Wednesday that further increases would be needed, and that CME Group's futures put the odds of an October increase above 60 percent. ^{[11, 12]}

The projections themselves, published with the 16 September decision that took the target range to 3.75 to 4 percent, put the median participant's federal funds rate at 4.1 percent at the end of this year and 4.1 at the end of 2027, with a range across participants of 3.9 to 4.4 for this year and 3.1 to 4.4 for next; in June the medians had been 3.8 and 3.6. The median projection for inflation this year is 3.7 percent, and 3.4 on the core measure. The committee meets next on 27 and 28 October and on 8 and 9 December. ^{[13, 14, 15]}

The data the same morning

The Labor Department reported 197,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance in the week to 19 September, 1,000 fewer than the week before after that week was revised up by 2,000 to 198,000; the four-week average was 202,250. Insured unemployment in the week to 12 September was 1,719,000, a rate of 1.1 percent. ^[16]

The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported sales of new single-family houses at an annual rate of 684,000 in August, 6.4 percent above July's 643,000 with a margin of error of 19.5 points either way, and 2.0 percent below August 2025. The median price was 393,700 dollars, 5.8 percent below a year earlier; 483,000 new houses were for sale at the end of the month, 8.5 months of supply at August's pace. ^[17]

Freddie Mac's weekly survey, published the same morning, put the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.03 percent, up from 6.95 the week before and 6.30 a year earlier, with the 15-year at 6.42. 'The housing market remains supported by a solid labor market and an economy that is growing at a healthy rate,' the company said. ^[18]

Who it reaches

Stocks ended little changed: Yahoo Finance reported the Dow down 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 just below flat and the Nasdaq slightly higher, after a Reuters report that American and Iranian negotiators were working on a phased agreement over the Strait of Hormuz lifted the market from its morning lows; crude futures rose more than 3 percent, and Costco reported its fourth quarter after the close. ^[8]

The long end of the curve sets the mortgage. On BNN Bloomberg a strategist noted that the thirty-year bond yield 'influences the mortgage rate,' and Freddie Mac's 7.03 percent arrived the same morning. Lennar said in the results it filed on 16 September that its market had deteriorated since its last call as mortgage rates rose, and KB Home said in its filing of 22 September that conditions had weakened since June on higher rates; both sell to buyers who borrow at the rates Freddie Mac surveys. ^{[19, 18, 20, 21]}

The dealers' share on Thursday was the smallest part of the competitive awards. J.P. Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among the primary dealers on the New York Fed's list, the firms required to bid at every auction, and the 5.4 billion left with the dealers as a group is what the rest of the market did not take. Each company's file on this site carries its record. ^{[22, 1]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

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