Mon: the 3-year auction was weak on both measures, cover 2.53 and indirects 55.5 percent, and the 5-year closed 1.1 basis points higher. One hit, and a thin one.
Written Monday November 9, 2026, at about 5:30 PM ET, covering Monday November 9. The $58 billion 3-year auction drew a bid-to-cover of 2.53 and an indirect share of 55.48 percent, the lowest of the last nine on both (TreasuryDirect), so the Weak row triggered: the 5-year closed at 4.659 percent against Friday's 4.648 (Yahoo), a hit by 1.1 basis points. The yield was above Friday's close from 9:50 AM, the auction window moved it 0.1 basis points, and the S&P 500 rose 2.35 percent while Brent fell more than 6 percent (the AP ties the rally to oil). Directs took 35.0 percent, the most of the eight 3-year auctions since April, and dealers 9.5 percent. No when-issued yield, so no tail. Treasury's 3-year par point fell 1 basis point; recorded, not graded.
Written Monday November 9, 2026, at about 5:30 PM ET, covering Monday November 9's session. The plan graded below (editorial/plans/2026-11-09.md) was committed Friday evening at 5:55 PM ET, before any Monday US event; its own timing paragraph says about 6:00 PM. The Tuesday plan was committed tonight at 5:10 PM ET, before this note. The $58 billion 3-year note auction drew a bid-to-cover of 2.53 and an indirect share of 55.48 percent, at or below both of the plan's weak lines, so the Weak row triggered: the 5-year closed at 4.659 percent against Friday's 4.648. One hit of one, by 1.1 basis points. That is the grade, and it is a small one. The 5-year had already moved above Friday's close by 9:50 AM, more than three hours before the auction; the half hour around the result moved it by a tenth of a basis point; and the session was one in which the S&P 500 rose 2.35 percent and Brent fell more than 6 percent. The plan said in advance that it would accept whatever else happened between Friday's close and Monday's, and it does. A 1.1 basis point margin on that day does not show that the auction moved the yield, and this note does not claim it did.
This continues Friday's note, where October payrolls printed +165,000 and the 5- and 10-year closed higher by 4.0 and 2.2 basis points. Friday's 4.648 percent close on the 5-year is the level this plan graded against.
What the data said
- 3-year note auction, 1:00 PM ET, CUSIP 91282CRW3, $58 billion, new issue maturing November 15, 2029. High yield 4.627 percent, coupon 4.625, median yield 4.580, low 4.500; 73.41 percent allotted at the high. Bids of $146.62 billion against $58.00 billion accepted, a bid-to-cover of 2.53 (2.528 unrounded). Of the $57,692,866,000 in competitive awards, indirect bidders took $32,010,287,000, or 55.48 percent; direct bidders $20,213,100,000, or 35.04 percent; primary dealers $5,469,479,000, or 9.48 percent (TreasuryDirect,
TA_WS/securities/auctioned, record updated 1:04 PM ET, read 5:09 PM ET; the parent check at about 3:35 PM ET gave the same figures). Against the eight prior 3-year auctions in the plan (Treasury Fiscal Data, fetched Nov 6), both the cover and the indirect share are the lowest: the previous lows were 2.54 in May and 57.6 percent in October. Graded below. - The other two bidder classes, recorded because the classifier does not use them. The direct share, 35.04 percent, is higher than in any of the seven 3-year auctions from April to October on Fiscal Data's figures (the highest of those was October's 31.66), and the dealer take, 9.48 percent, is lower than all of them except July's 7.74. Dealers are the residual buyer, so a small dealer take is not what a weak auction usually looks like. The plan's two measures said weak; the dealer share did not agree, and the plan did not ask it. The bidder-classes guide explains who sits in each class.
- No tail. A tail is the high yield minus the when-issued yield just before the 1:00 PM close. TreasuryDirect does not publish a when-issued yield and none was read from another source, so no tail is computed here. The median yield, 4.7 basis points below the high, describes the spread of accepted bids, not the auction against the market. The auction-demand guide sets out why the tail needs that number.
- Treasury's 3-year par point. 4.58 percent for Nov 9, from 4.59 on Nov 6, down 1 basis point on a day the 2-year rose 5 and the 5-year 3 (curve below). Recorded, as the plan said, and not graded. A new 3-year issue priced Monday can shift which security the par point is fitted through, and one basis point on a curve quoted to two decimals is the smallest move it can show; this note does not read anything into it.
- Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman, 8:40 AM ET, discussion, "Community Banking", Boston. Topic community banking; no text was read. Recorded, not graded.
- Bills. The 13- and 26-week auctions were not read. Not graded.
What moved, and when
The 5-year (^FVX) closed at 4.659 percent from 4.648, up 1.1 basis points, on a daily bar that opened 4.632, ran to 4.686 and bottomed at 4.624 (Yahoo daily bar, pulled 5:08 PM ET; yield bars close 2:59 PM ET). The day started on the miss side: the 8:20 AM bar opened 4.632 and the 8:50 bar closed 4.629, about 2 basis points below Friday's close. The 9:20 bar printed the session low, 4.624, and then closed 4.657, the first 30-minute close above Friday's 4.648, and the 10:20 bar closed 4.677. From there to 2:20 PM the 5-year sat between 4.668 and 4.686. The event window the plan recorded, the 12:50 bar open to the 1:20 bar close, ran 4.679 to 4.680: a tenth of a basis point, with a range of 4.671 to 4.682 across the two bars. The 2:20 bar then fell to 4.652 and closed 4.664, and the 2:50 bar closed 4.659, the daily close. From the 9:50 bar onward the lowest prints were 4.650 in that bar and 4.652 in the 2:20 bar, so the line did not return to Friday's close after 9:50 AM, but it came within 0.4 basis points of it in the last hour. All fourteen 30-minute bars are complete; they were pulled at 5:08 PM ET, more than two hours after the last one closed. Event windows explains why the window is recorded and never graded.
The 10-year (^TNX) closed 4.864 from 4.859, up 0.5 basis points, and the 30-year (^TYX) 5.256 from 5.260, down 0.4; the 13-week (^IRX) rose 3.5 to 4.035 (Yahoo). Neither the 10- nor the 30-year was graded. On Treasury's closing par curve the front end led again: 1-month 4.04 (Nov 6: 4.02), 1.5-month 4.13 (4.07), 2-month 4.19 (4.15), 3-month 4.24 (4.19), 4-month 4.20 (4.19), 6-month 4.26 (4.23), 1-year 4.38 (4.33), 2-year 4.56 (4.51), 3-year 4.58 (4.59), 5-year 4.67 (4.64), 7-year 4.76 (4.74), 10-year 4.88 (4.86), 20-year 5.29 (5.29), 30-year 5.26 (5.26) (Treasury nominal curve, CSV fetched 5:08 PM ET, header row checked: the second column is the 1.5-month bill). The 2-year rose 5 basis points for a second session and the 2s10s spread narrowed from 35 to 32. The front-end rise on a day of falling oil and rising stocks has no sourced explanation in this note.
Equities had what the Associated Press called the index's best day since April. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed at 7,549.94 from 7,376.86, up 2.35 percent, on a bar that opened 7,422.24, which was also its low, and reached 7,577.39 (Yahoo). The AP's closing story (Stan Choe, Associated Press, Nov 9, via the Times Leader and 2news.com) has the same close, 173.08 points higher, and attributes the rally to oil: "The U.S. stock market rallied Monday and recovered most of its big loss from last week as oil prices swung lower." It gives Brent down 5.8 percent at $92.57 at the time of writing, says oil has "been coming down from more than $112 at the start of the month" amid "uncertainty about what will happen with the war with Iran", and that "the latest leg lower came after President Donald Trump told CNN over the weekend" (the comments themselves are not quoted here), and notes that Nvidia fell on the day. That is the AP's explanation, secondhand; this site did not check it against any other source.
January Brent (BZF27.NYM) closed 92.17 from 98.32, down 6.26 percent, on a bar that opened 98.06 and bottomed at 90.63; the dollar index (DX-Y.NYB) closed 101.666 from 102.300, down 0.6 percent; gold (GC=F) closed 4,149.5 from 4,074.9, up 1.8 percent (Yahoo daily bars, re-pulled after 5:00 PM ET with the last trade stamped 4:59 PM, so the Monday bars are complete). A convention note, as on Friday: Friday's note quoted Brent at 97.76, DXY at 102.279 and gold at 4,079.5, read at 5:45 to 5:52 PM ET Friday; the completed Friday bars Yahoo now shows are 98.32, 102.300 and 4,074.9, which is why the Friday column below differs from Friday's note. Measured from Friday's note, Brent's fall is 5.7 percent rather than 6.26. None of it is graded. ES=F closed 7,580.75 from 7,402.0.
The tape
| Market | Fri Nov 6 | Mon Nov 9 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5Y yield (^FVX close) | 4.648% | 4.659% | +1.1 bp |
| 10Y yield (^TNX close) | 4.859% | 4.864% | +0.5 bp |
| 30Y yield (^TYX close) | 5.260% | 5.256% | -0.4 bp |
| 13-week (^IRX close) | 4.000% | 4.035% | +3.5 bp |
| S&P 500 (^GSPC close) | 7,376.86 | 7,549.94 | +2.35% |
| Brent, January (BZF27 daily close) | 98.32 | 92.17 | -6.15 (-6.26%) |
| Gold (GC=F daily close) | 4,074.9 | 4,149.5 | +1.8% |
| DXY (DX-Y.NYB daily close) | 102.300 | 101.666 | -0.6% |
| ES=F (daily close) | 7,402.0 | 7,580.75 | +2.4% |
Sources: Yahoo Finance query1 (v8/finance/chart), daily bars, pulled 5:08 PM ET Monday; DXY, gold and Brent re-pulled after 5:00 PM ET as completed bars. Friday's yield and S&P closes match Friday's note; the other Friday figures are the completed bars, as explained above. The parent pull at about 5:05 PM ET had gold at 4,149.4 and DXY at 101.664, a few minutes before the bars completed.
Grading the plan
Leg A, the 3-year note auction, classified from TreasuryDirect's published result. Weak at a bid-to-cover of 2.53 or below or an indirect share of 57.5 percent or below, with the 5-year closing above Friday's 4.648 percent; strong at 2.73 or above and 67.6 percent or above, with the 5-year below it; anything else no call. Classification: cover 2.53, at the weak line; indirects 55.48 percent, below it. Weak on both measures.
| Line in the map | Expected | Actual | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weak (cover ≤ 2.53 or indirects ≤ 57.5%): ^FVX above 4.648% | above 4.648% | 4.659% | Hit |
| Strong (cover ≥ 2.73 and indirects ≥ 67.6%): ^FVX below 4.648% | if triggered | cover 2.53, indirects 55.48% | Not triggered |
| Neither | no call | weak on both | Not triggered |
Grade: one hit, no misses, no no-calls, nothing void. The honest qualifiers are four, and they are worth more than the hit. First, the margin is 1.1 basis points. Over the last 250 sessions the 5-year's median close-to-close move was 3.2 basis points, and about one day in five moved 1.1 or less (Yahoo ^FVX daily closes, worked through in the paired reference), so Monday's move was smaller than most days' and is the size of move the series produces with no catalyst at all. Second, the 5-year crossed Friday's close in the 9:20 AM bar and every print from the 9:50 bar onward was above it, more than three hours before the auction; the window around the result moved it 0.1 basis points. The yield was already where the weak row said it would be before the result existed. Third, the session included a 2.35 percent rise in the S&P 500 and a fall in Brent of more than 6 percent, and the plan graded against Friday's close knowing that it would carry whatever else happened; it accepted that in advance and the grade accepts it now, without adjustment in either direction. Fourth, the cover sat exactly on the line: 2.53 is weak by the table's "2.53 or below", and the indirect share would have triggered the row on its own. The record takes the hit; this paragraph is what it is worth, which is that the auction and the close agreed, not that the auction moved the close.
The no-call band was set just outside the six-auction range since May, and Monday's result left the range on the weak side on both measures. That is the second plan in a row to trigger a row, after Friday's payrolls, and the margins on the three hits across the two days were 4.0, 2.2 and 1.1 basis points.
Positioning, for the record
No CFTC report was released Monday. The latest, positions as of Tuesday November 3 (released Friday), is in Friday's note: leveraged funds net short 2,315,516 contracts of the 5-year note after adding 237,656, the first Treasury change past its noise floor in weeks (bin/tff_report.py --weeks 52, run 5:54 PM ET Nov 6). The next report, for November 10 positions, is released Monday November 16, delayed by Veterans Day per the CFTC schedule. The Traders in Financial Futures guide is the reference.
What we do not know
- Whether the auction did anything to the 5-year. The window moved 0.1 basis points and the line was above Friday's close for more than three hours beforehand. Nothing here separates the auction's effect from the rest of the day.
- The tail. No when-issued yield was read, so the most common one-number summary of a Treasury auction is not available to this note.
- Why the front end rose 5 basis points at the 2-year on a day of falling oil and rising equities. No sourced explanation was read.
- Why the 3-year par point fell 1 basis point while its neighbours rose. Not checked; possibly a change in the fitted security after the new issue, possibly rounding. Not graded either way.
- The cause of the equity rally and the oil fall beyond the AP's account, which is quoted as the AP's.
What comes next
A plan for Tuesday November 10 (editorial/plans/2026-11-10.md) was committed at 5:10 PM ET tonight, before this note and before any Tuesday event. It has two legs. Leg A is October core CPI, month-on-month, first print, at 8:30 AM ET (BLS schedule, read tonight): hot at 0.3 or above, cool at 0.1 or below, 0.2 no call, set from the last six first prints (0.4, 0.2, 0.0, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.3, April to September, from FRED's CPILFESL vintages), graded on the 5- and 10-year against tonight's 4.659 and 4.864 percent. Leg B is the $42 billion 10-year auction at 1:00 PM ET (TreasuryDirect upcoming feed), built the way Monday's was: weak at a cover of 2.39 or below or indirects of 63.9 percent or below, strong at 2.78 or above and 81.6 percent or above, graded on the 10-year; if the two legs point the 10-year opposite ways, that line is void for both. Governor Waller speaks on the outlook at 4:00 AM ET in London and Bowman at 3:30 and 6:30 PM ET, after the last yield bar; recorded, not graded. Wednesday November 11 is Veterans Day, with the Fed's statistical releases moved to Thursday and the dollar bond market closed by SIFMA's recommendation. The record since mid-October: Oct 14 two hits, two misses; Oct 16 no hits, two misses; Oct 21, 22 and 23 nothing triggered; Oct 27 one hit; Oct 30 nothing triggered; Nov 3 two hits; Nov 4 nothing triggered; Nov 5 nothing triggered; Nov 6 two hits; Nov 9 one hit. No plans for Oct 28, Oct 29 or Nov 2. The full table is on the scorecard.
What to read alongside
- Daily yield noise (the paired reference)
- Treasury auction demand
- Auction bidder classes
- Event windows
- The no-call band
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