NEW YORK, Aug. 23 -- Scott Bessent's fix held in the bond market for about twenty-four hours. In gold, it is still holding.

The Treasury secretary announced on Wednesday that the department would at least double the size of its liquidity support buyback operations at the long end of the curve, lifting the ceiling from $2 billion an operation to at least $4 billion across the ten-to-twenty and twenty-to-thirty year sectors. Thirty-year yields fell nine basis points that afternoon, to 5.196 percent, and the ten-year shed six, to 4.647 percent. By Thursday the entire move was gone. By Friday, long yields sat above where they had been before anyone had heard of the plan. Gold gave back nothing. It closed the week at $4,600.91 an ounce, up $8...