Wall Street fears Bessent will intervene again to curb yields; a key clue may emerge this Friday.

Some Wall Street traders were caught off guard in August when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unexpectedly expanded the size of old-bond buybacks, and they are now preparing for the possibility that the Treasury will take more active intervention measures. As the Treasury prepares to release its latest debt management plan in November, the market may get key clues this Friday. Bessent's so-called "Treasury twist operation" was a response to the sharp rise in U.S. Treasury yields. Rising borrowing costs have been a major pain point for the Trump administration, which had promised to lower financing costs, and the operation did initially produce some effect. But by intervening in this way, Bessent has also effectively broken the decades-old U.S. Treasury principle of "regular and predictable" issuance, that is, achieving the lowest long-term financing costs through stable, predictable debt issuance operations.