The Treasury Department on Wednesday said it will buy back up to $6 billion of government debt in an operation aimed at keeping bond markets functioning.

The much-anticipated announcement triples the normal buyback operation and follows an announcement Aug. 19 from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the department would at least double the normal amount for already-issued securities.

Treasury also said future operations will be at least $4 billion.

Though the operation ostensibly is aimed at keeping government debt markets liquid — in this case for 10- and 20-year notes — the extraordinary measure also has been seen as an effort to put a lid on Treasury yields, which had hit highs not seen since prior to the global financial crisis in 2008.

(Continue Reading – CNBC)

A suspected Iranian nuclear site buried under granite has seen a flurry of construction work this year as the war with the US has transpired, according to a group of analysts who reviewed six years of satellite imagery.

The Pickaxe Mountain site, located near the Natanz nuclear complex roughly 140 miles south of Tehran, has been the subject of steady discussion by intelligence agencies which view it as a likely location for Iran to protect future nuclear program efforts.

According to a new satellite imagery analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, shared exclusively with CNN ahead of its publication, there has been “a clear surge in construction activity” this year.

(Continue Reading – CNN)

On Thursday, the European Central Bank is widely expected to raise its key interest rates by 25 basis points for a second time this year, taking the deposit rate to 2.50%, as concerns over persistent inflation continue to mount.

The ECB's Governing Council is unlikely to disappoint current market expectations, having increasingly signalled the prospect of further tightening over the past six weeks.

At its 23 July meeting, the key deposit rate was left unchanged, with policymakers saying they were closely monitoring the "intensity and duration of the [energy] shock" stemming from the ongoing US-Iran conflict in the Middle East, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz.

At the time, Brent crude was trading in the mid-to-high USD 90s per barrel, while euro area headline inflation had eased to 2.8% y/y in June from 3.2% in May. At the start of the new week, Brent is nearing USD 100 per barrel. Core inflation, which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, stood at around 2.4%.

(Continue Reading – LiveSquawk)

President Trump’s escalation of the trade war with Canada is coming at a bad time for Senate Republican candidates, who are being put in the awkward place of having to defend the administration’s economic record while having to push back against Trump’s targeting of critical Canadian imports and companies.

Trump got pushback from a loyal Senate ally Monday when Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called out the president’s threat to ban Bombardier, the Canadian jet maker, from selling planes in the U.S., putting hundreds of jobs in Wichita at risk.

“I’m going to fight to keep Bombardier’s over 1,200 Kansas jobs. I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office,” Marshall posted on X, the social media platform, Tuesday.

(Continue Reading – The Hill)