Bond-market participants got a major surprise Wednesday afternoon when the Treasury Department’s $39 billion auction of 10-year notes produced very strong demand, helping to alleviate concerns that buying interest would fail to hold up given tariff-driven volatility.

When Treasury auctions go well, Veldkamp said, “it means that all of the bonds that the U.S. government wanted to get sold, that somebody actually showed up and bought them. And that they bought them at a price that was roughly what we expected the price to be.”