Stats › Intraday and market microstructure › The basis trade
Three official bodies size the Treasury basis trade at 830 billion, 1,060 billion and 500 billion dollars
| Source and date | Basis trade | Hedge fund long Treasury exposure | Share of privately held Treasuries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central bank note, September 2025 | about 830 bn | 2.4 trillion | 8.5% gross |
| International body, second quarter 2025 | 1,060 bn | 2,379 bn | about 10% |
| Research office, September 2019 | 505 bn by one method | not reported | not reported |
| The same, by a second method | 409 bn | not reported | not reported |
| The same, stated peak range | 400 to 500 bn | not reported | not reported |
All three bodies work from aggregations of the same confidential regulatory filings. The central bank note states its own figures are approximations consistent with the reported data rather than exact measurements, because the filings contain no trade level data, and that basis trade estimates vary significantly across methods. None of the three reports a standard error, a confidence interval or a test statistic.
The largest leveraged trade in government bonds has no agreed size. Estimates from a central bank note, an international body and a research office differ by a factor of two, and all three use the same underlying regulatory filings.
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