Treasury Yields Rebound, Crypto’s Comeback, Wall Street’s Biggest Bargains 8/20/26

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**Brian Sullivan** (1:03)
Stocks are sinking, yields are jumping and the bond market apparently not buying what the Treasury is selling. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody with Kelly, I'm Brian. The bonds sell off, re-igniting even as Secretary Besant defending bigger buybacks right on our air, Robinhood, Stephanie Guild, SMBC's Joe Lavorgna, former White House insider, and Pimco's Jerome Schneider, all here to weigh in on what's going on.

**Kelly Evans** (1:26)
Plus crypto comeback, Bitcoin back above 70,000, crypto stocks surging, and Trump giving the Clarity Act a fresh push. We'll debate where crypto goes from here with VanEck's head of digital assets. And retail earnings are in full swing. Jeff Kilburg is shopping for Upside, not getting it in Walmart today. His list of best buys right now.

**Brian Sullivan** (1:46)
Yeah, so we've got a lot to do today, but let it start right here in the bond market, because yields, they're rising again, reversing yesterday's decline. This despite the US Treasury's bigger than expected buybacks. And if you've been watching or listening to CNBC the last couple of days, you know that our friend Rick Santelli has been fired up. He joins us now.
Rick, you've been very, I will say, passionate about what's going on in the bond market. You've pushed back about what some people in the market have been saying. What exactly right now are you so worked up about that you think maybe others are getting wrong in the market?

**Rick Santelli** (2:29)
I don't know who's getting anything right or wrong. I didn't get that memo. All I know is that I'm a lot more fired up than the Treasury market is. The Treasury market isn't fired up.
Can you see the net change right now, Brian, on crude oil? October. Do you see October, the new lead contract? How much of a percent is it up today? Do you see?

**Brian Sullivan** (2:48)
I'm not looking at it. There we go. It's up 2.03%, Rick.

**Rick Santelli** (2:53)
Wouldn't you suspect that that might push yields up a bit?

**Brian Sullivan** (2:56)
Yes. So you think oil is leading the bond market rather than the other way around, obviously?

**Rick Santelli** (3:03)
Oh, absolutely. And I think that to try to push this on a memo that's going to potentially raise the buybacks, and the Treasury Secretary said it much better than I could this morning, it's August and those are thinly traded. And when he talks thinly traded, there's only three maturities he's earmarking, 10s, 20s and 30s. He certainly isn't talking about 10s. He's talking about 20s and 30s.
And it's hard to disagree with that. He is, after all, the Treasury Secretary. This is in his purview. And I don't mind a more proactive Treasury Secretary compared to the status position of many of his predecessors.

**Brian Sullivan** (3:40)
But I know that there's some smart people out there, like our friend David Zervos of Jeffreys and others, who would say, well, he's really the only, quote, bond vigilante, I know you don't love that term, but he's the only bond vigilante that really matters right now. But I think what's catching the markets ears and eyes, Rick, is that this buying announcement by the Treasury came just two weeks after we were funding, and I think the timing of it is what's capturing some people's imagination, for lack of a better term.

**Rick Santelli** (4:09)
Yeah, no, once again, it's hard for me to weigh in on a topic where I just don't see that the market's burying any of this out. Now, to think that you couldn't find Fed officials or you couldn't find traders at trading desks that don't like this or don't like the Fed, but absolutely, I'm sure there's boatloads. It doesn't mean their interpretation is the correct one, and let's draw attention to maybe something nobody's pointing out, but it's always a big deal. I've been doing this for a long time. Midterms are coming up. It's silly season.