Listen to a summary of The Macro Butler weekly newsletter via podcast on Substack; YouTube; Rumble & TikTok.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/inflation-is-what-chaos-looks-like-70f

The Treasury saved the best for last: the final coupon auction of the first full week of 2026 turned out to be the strongest of the bunch. Uncle Sam unloaded $22bn of 30-year paper in what can only be called a crowd-pleaser, pricing at a 4.825% high yield—just a hair above December’s 4.773%—and even stopping through the When-Issued 4.833% by a tidy 0.8bps. Not bad for a market everyone keeps declaring “exhausted.”

Demand didn’t just show up—it brought friends: the bid-to-cover climbed to a healthy 2.418, up from 2.365 last month and the strongest since June. The internals were equally well-behaved, with foreign buyers scooping up 66.8% (up from 65.4% in December and comfortably above the six-auction average of 63.7%). Direct bidders took a modest 21.3%, slightly below their recent norm, leaving dealers with just 11.95%—below average and mercifully light on inventory.

Bottom line: a blockbuster auction—and further proof that much of Wall Street still hasn’t read the memo that in the coming Trump-era stagflation, the former “risk-free” asset may now be the riskiest thing on the menu.

The Macro Butler sat down with Steve Yang of Natural Resource Stocks to crack open the Venezuelan Pandora’s box—Fortress America, ripple effects in the Taiwan Strait, and what all this geopolitical theatre really means for your portfolio (it’s not just noise).

So pour yourself a properly overpriced coffee ☕️, get comfortable, and prepare for a calm but unsettling upgrade to your worldview.

https://themacrobutler.substack.com/p/interview-with-natural-resource-stocks-6e5