Eric Cantor Is Short Treasurys (Sort Of) - MarketBeat - WSJ

Eric Cantor Is Short Treasurys (Sort Of) - MarketBeat - WSJ: "By Mark Gongloff


AP
What do Bill Gross, Evan Newmark and Rep. Eric Cantor have in common? They’re all betting against Treasury debt!

But only one of these men has been involved in heated negotiations over the government’s debt ceiling, and that’s Eric Cantor, No. 2 Republican in the House.

Mr. Cantor, who walked out of debt discussions with Vice President Joe Biden last week, owns up to $15,000 in shares of the ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, Salon notes today, updating a Wall Street Journal report on this from last year."

Salon argues this means Mr. Cantor has a conflict of interest in the debt negotiations. Conventional wisdom holds that letting the talks fail would roil the bond market, hurting Treasurys, which would benefit Mr. Cantor. The TBT is up 3% since Mr. Cantor walked out of debt talks.

But to be fair to Mr. Cantor, he also owns a lot of Treasury debt (updated to add: as part of his pension), and the TBT merely hedges some of that exposure, his spokesperson tells Salon.

And so far the Treasury market has seemed decidedly not roiled by the debt debate, which most observers regard as so much Kabuki theater anyway.

Correction: The initial version of this post incorrectly said Mr. Cantor owned up to 15,000 shares of TBT. Instead, he owns up to $15,000 in shares of TBT.