Scott Bessent isn’t worried. The market is. The US Treasury secretary has been trying to reassure investors that economic growth and budget restraint can put the US government’s financial house in order. But he’s 0-for-3 on his 3-3-3 plan of increasing oil production, growing the economy, and cutting the deficit. His bond buyback program landed as a curious half-step — big enough to suggest concern but too small to make a difference. Tempers are flaring, WSJ reports.
Cracks are showing in the riskiest corners of the credit markets, always the first to surface confidence gaps. Take the loan market, where the amount of deeply distressed loans (those made to low-rated companies trading at 60 cents on the dollar or less) has ballooned to a level not seen since March 2020, as JPMorgan strategists pointed out this week. The biggest concentration of these highly distressed loans, of course, is in the technology sector, where SaaSpocalypse fears have eased among stock investors but not sandbag-packing credit investors. Rising global bond yields and Fed tightening haven’t helped. If Bessent “is the house now,” investors are calling his bluff.