---
title: How to Trade the Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA)
description: Trade the US Treasury Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA): coupon auction sizes, bill-vs-coupon mix, and the term-premium impact on the long end and curve.
source: Helious
canonical: https://helious.io/guides/how-to-trade-the-quarterly-refunding-announcement
---

# How to Trade the Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA)

The QRA is a duration-supply event: read the coupon sizes, the bill-vs-coupon mix, and the term-premium impact. Then trade the delta from consensus, 4x a year.

The 30-second read: the Quarterly Refunding Announcement is a duration-supply event, not a rate decision. Treasury tells you how much it will borrow, in which tenors, and how hard it will skew toward bills versus coupons. More long-end coupon supply lifts [term premium](https://helious.io/learn/term-premium) and steepens the curve; a tilt toward bills relieves duration and supports the long end. It only prints four times a year, so the reaction is concentrated. Trade the delta from consensus: the size increments, the coupon-vs-bill mix, and the forward-guidance language, never the absolute numbers.

## 1. It's two prints, not one: know the calendar

The refunding runs on a fixed quarterly cadence: the refunding months are February, May, August, and November. Each cycle is actually two releases. The Monday of refunding week (usually around 3:00pm ET) brings the privately-held marketable borrowing estimate: Treasury's projected net borrowing need for the current and next quarter plus the assumed end-of-quarter cash balance. That number frames the total funding envelope and is the first thing the market reprices.

Then the refunding statement itself lands at 8:30am ET on the Wednesday. That's where the actual auction size table, the bill-vs-coupon guidance, the TBAC recommendation letter, and the buyback schedule all print at once. Put both dates on your [calendar](https://helious.io/calendar): the Monday estimate sizes the need, the Wednesday statement tells you how it gets funded, and either can move rates hard on its own.

## 2. Read the coupon size table: increments and where they land

The core of the Wednesday statement is the nominal coupon auction size table across the 2s, 3s, 5s, 7s, 10s, 20s and 30s, plus FRNs and TIPS. What matters is the increment versus the prior quarter, in dollars per tenor, and where Treasury concentrates any increases. Bumps at the front end ([2-year](https://helious.io/auctions/2-year-note), [3-year](https://helious.io/auctions/3-year-note), 5-year) are duration-light and easily digested; bumps at the [10-year](https://helious.io/auctions/10-year-note), [20-year](https://helious.io/auctions/20-year-bond) and [30-year](https://helious.io/auctions/30-year-bond) are duration-heavy and directly cheapen the long end.

The 20-year has been the curve's problem child: persistently cheap to the wings since its 2020 reintroduction, and Treasury has repeatedly trimmed it to relieve that concession. When you scan the table, weight the long-end increases most: a $3bn add to the 30-year hits the market's duration budget far harder than the same add to the 2-year. Track the follow-through in the actual auctions on the [auctions hub](https://helious.io/auctions).

## 3. The coupon-vs-bill mix is the fastest long-end tell

TBAC guidance is to keep T-bills roughly 15-20% of total marketable debt outstanding. When Treasury funds a deficit surge with bills, as it did through the second half of 2023, it floods the front end and spares the long end the duration it would otherwise have to absorb. That's supportive for 10s and 30s, even as it pressures front-end repo and [SOFR](https://helious.io/learn/sofr) dynamics. Term the debt out into coupons instead, and you get the opposite: more [duration](https://helious.io/learn/duration) for the private market to hold.

So the single quickest read on whether the mix is long-end-friendly is the bill share versus that 15-20% band. Above the band and rising means Treasury is leaning on bills and protecting the long end; a deliberate move back into coupons is a signal it's rebuilding duration supply. Watch the bill share and the coupon increments together: they're two halves of the same funding decision.

## 4. Term premium and the duration-supply channel

Dealers translate the entire size table into 10-year equivalents: every tenor's issuance weighted by its duration, to get the net duration supply hitting the market each quarter. Rising duration supply is the mechanical driver of [term premium](https://helious.io/learn/term-premium): the more long-dated paper the private market must hold, the more yield compensation it demands, and the more 5s30s and 10s30s steepen. This is why the QRA trades as a supply shock rather than a policy signal.

August 2023 is the textbook case. Larger-than-expected long-end coupon increases, landing the same week as the Fitch downgrade, drove a sharp term-premium repricing and pushed the [10-year](https://helious.io/auctions/10-year-note) toward 5%, a bear steepener led by the long end. If you trade the curve, map the QRA delta onto your [2s10s](https://helious.io/learn/2s10s-spread) and 5s30s positions before the print, because the reaction shows up in slope as much as in outright yield.

## 5. The guidance language is as tradable as the numbers

Read the statement's forward-guidance sentence, the TBAC recommendation letter, and the buyback schedule alongside the table. In November 2023, Treasury undershot expectations for long-end increases and signaled it did not anticipate needing further nominal coupon size increases for at least the next several quarters. That combination, a smaller-than-feared long-end skew plus explicit forward guidance, sparked one of the sharpest bond rallies of the cycle and reversed much of the August move.

Treasury also uses the refunding to set its regular buyback cadence: liquidity-support purchases of off-the-run issues and cash-management operations. Those don't reduce net supply, but they matter for specific-issue liquidity and for the market's read on Treasury's intentions. The statement plus its accompanying Q&A effectively locks the funding trajectory for the next two to three quarters, so trade the guidance, not just the current-quarter delta.

## 6. How to trade it in real time on Helious

The QRA is a scheduled 8:30am event, so pre-arm for both prints. Helious flags the Monday borrowing estimate and the Wednesday refunding statement on the [calendar](https://helious.io/calendar), and the feed's MOVING and BONDS tabs surface the size table and the term-premium reaction the moment they cross, no waiting for a desk note. Set alerts on your long-end tenors ahead of the release so you catch the first repricing, not the third.

Then follow the supply into the actual auctions. A heavier issuance calendar shows up as fatter tails at the affected tenors over the following weeks: the market's real-time verdict on whether it can digest the new sizes. Track that on the [auction analysis](https://helious.io/auctions) and the [tail dataset](https://helious.io/data/treasury-auction-tails), and pair this guide with [how to read a Treasury auction result](https://helious.io/guides/how-to-read-a-treasury-auction). The [live desk](https://helious.io/) ties the QRA, the feed, and the auction follow-through into one screen.

## Questions

### How often is the Quarterly Refunding Announcement, and when is the next one?

Four times a year, in the refunding months of February, May, August, and November. Each cycle is a two-part release: a Monday privately-held marketable borrowing estimate and the Wednesday 8:30am ET refunding statement with the actual auction size table.

### What time is the QRA released?

The refunding statement drops at 8:30am ET on the Wednesday of refunding week. The marketable borrowing estimate that frames it is published the prior Monday, typically around 3:00pm ET, so there are two scheduled releases to watch each quarter.

### Why did the QRA move the bond market so much in 2023?

Two prints bookended a major move in Treasuries. August 2023 delivered larger-than-expected long-end coupon increases that lifted term premium and pushed the 10-year toward 5%; November 2023 undershot those expectations and guided to no further coupon size increases for several quarters, triggering one of the sharpest rallies of the cycle.

### What's the difference between the borrowing estimate and the refunding statement?

The Monday borrowing estimate tells you the total marketable borrowing need and the assumed end-of-quarter cash balance: the size of the funding envelope. The Wednesday refunding statement tells you how that need is funded: the coupon auction size table, the bill-vs-coupon mix, and the forward guidance.

### How does bill issuance affect term premium and the long end?

Bills are duration-light, so funding a deficit with bills spares the long end the supply it would otherwise absorb: supportive for 10s and 30s and for term premium. Terming out into coupons does the opposite. TBAC guidance keeps bills near 15-20% of marketable debt, so the deviation from that band is the fast read on whether the mix is long-end-friendly.