Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Are Stock Market Investors Being Set Up For Another Fall?

Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010 Jul 30, 2010 - 01:10 PM GMT

By: Sy_Harding

Stock-Markets In the early 1930’s, after the 1929 crash, Wall Street could not get nervous investors interested in stocks again. However, with interest rates dropped to extreme lows in the Great Depression, those who still had money were eager to invest in something that would provide more income than they could receive on savings accounts. As a result Wall Street had no trouble selling them bonds.


It was later said to have been a slower disaster than the stock market crash, but almost as devastating. Bonds decline in price when interest rates and yields rise. Over the next two decades interest rates began to rise from their extreme lows, and the price of bonds declined. Investors new to bonds discovered it was not a safe haven to be receiving 4% annual interest on bonds if the bonds were dropping 10% in price annually due to rising interest rates.

I bring that up because of reports this week that the major U.S. banks are on a tear to raise huge amounts of low cost capital by issuing bonds while rates are at record lows, and while investor demand for higher returns is on the rise as an alternative to stocks. Some of the low cost capital being raised is being used to pay off the higher cost bonds and debt on their books. Moody’s estimates that U.S. banks have already refinanced $200 billion of the $372 billion in debt that is coming due in 2010.

The Financial Times quotes an executive with one of the big banks as saying, “There’s a bit of a food fight among investors to get hold of paper from U.S. banks.” (It’s not the same situation in Europe where banks need to raise capital but are struggling to issue new debt in the midst of the Eurozone debt crisis).

The large U.S. banks are not the only corporations having an easy time issuing new bonds, benefiting from the flight to safety. Investors have been piling into corporate and treasury bonds for quite some time, and it continues. The Investment Company Institute, which tracks money flows in retail mutual funds, estimates that individual investors pulled another $9 billion from U.S. stock funds in the first three weeks of July, even as the stock market was rallying again, and poured $20 billion more into corporate and government bond funds.

Tom Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist at JP Morgan Chase, speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook meeting in New York on Wednesday said that, “Retail investors buying bonds today, at a time when the supply of corporate bonds is shrinking . . . they’re chasing a bubble.”

Assuming the issuer does not default on its bonds, an investor will not lose money on individual bonds if they are held to maturity, when the issuer returns the borrowed money to the investor. However, holding to maturity may be difficult, as bond investors discovered in the late 1930’s and 1940’s, once stocks begin producing 10% to 25% in some years, while the 20-year corporate bond will continue to pay only 4.5% or whatever annually to maturity (and meanwhile may be significantly underwater until maturity due to rising interest rates).

As Tom Lee of JP Morgan also said Wednesday, “Have Americans ever been satisfied with earning a steady but low rate of return? What we have in American history is rolling from bubble to bubble, whether it’s stocks, real estate, commodities, emerging markets, time shares . . . when one bubble bursts they are moved to the next one.” Lee implies that the bubble currently forming is in bonds.

But it should be okay as long as the Fed holds interest rates at record low levels near zero for “an extended period of time” as they say they will, and particularly if the stock market has another leg to go on the downside (keeping the appeal of safe havens alive). But investors probably need to be aware of the potential that it is a bond bubble, and be prepared to bail out early when rates and yields begin rising, or if the stock market bottoms and begins a new leg up. With so much money in bonds and bond funds, the exit doors will be crowded when the time comes.

Sy Harding is president of Asset Management Research Corp, publishers of the financial website www.StreetSmartReport.com, and the free daily market blog, www.SyHardingblog.com.

© 2010 Copyright Sy Harding- All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in