In Monday's interview, Bessent reframed trying to move the underlying price of Treasurys and recast the recent debt-management policy changes as an effort to counter trades that create disorderly momentum. This is a narrower rationale than the one offered Aug. 20, when he said yields didn't "reflect the underlying fundamentals.” On Monday he characterized the change instead as an effort to slow the speed of certain moves. “I don't believe that I can change the equilibrium price, but nothing is ever in equilibrium. You're either moving from equilibrium or away from equilibrium. And financial journalists’ … job and hedge fund managers’ job is to speed things up. Mine is to speed things down and make sure that everything is fact-based, to let market participants know that things maybe aren't a one-way trip.” He challenged the idea that it hadn’t worked (“I’ll give you the counterfactual…what if I hadn’t done it?”) and said he was "fine" with where the market had landed. “The market is the market. Like I said, I’m not trying to change—I can’t change the equilibrium.” In mid-day trading, yields on the 10-year note moved up above 4.76% to the highest level of both the past year and since Trump became president in Jan 2025.(Nick Timiraos)