Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, June 07, 2013
Is Compound Interest Friend Or Foe? / Interest-Rates / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Amid all the superficial up and down rumblings of stocks and bonds, and hyped up analysis thereof, none of which makes you any wiser (hey, I told you Abenomics can't work..), it's a good idea to look at some of the more profound workings of the financial system. I saw an interesting take on an angle into this, even though unfortunately it was by itself also superficial.
The angle in question was provided by Walter Hickey for Business Insider, in an article (originally) entitled " Compound Interest Is Responsible For Modern Civilization " (it later turned into "A Simple Math Formula Is Basically Responsible For All Of Modern Civilization", but that’s not even true: just because something can be expressed in a math formula doesn't mean it turns into that formula). It's interesting, and it's not bad, but, sorry Walter, with all respect, I don't think it's good enough.
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Friday, June 07, 2013
The Painful Price of Subsidized Money / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: Bond yields have been generally declining, and the market as a whole is set up for them to continue the trend.
Not bad, right?
Wrong.
It's extremely dangerous - to all investors - because it can't go on forever. It's not a question of if this might happen, it's a question of when.
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Wednesday, June 05, 2013
U.S. Treasury Bonds Will be Returned to Sender / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Jim_Willie_CB
The USTreasury Bond is the primary vehicle for the USDollar. Nations do not hold the USDollar in raw currency form, except for the crime syndicates. They hold them in USTBond form, in order to gather some interest income. In the last few years, not few months, but years, the interest has been next to nothing, and surely far less than what it should be, given the risk and the nasty undermine to value by the monetary action by the central bank itself. Paltry interest aside, with all its unfortunate deterrent toward investment in USGovt debt, the USFed has been kicking out the value pillars for a very long time, far longer than the limit imposed loosely by Sir Alan Greenspasm of six to eight months. With the cost of money near zero, all markets are distorted, all assets improperly priced, and Gold marked for illicit ambush on a regular basis by the fascists.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Japan’s Easy Money Tsunami / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: David_Howden
The Bank of Japan has embarked on one of the most inflationary policies ever undertaken. Pledging to inject $1.4 trillion dollars into the economy over the next two years, the policy is aimed at generating price inflation of 2% and further depreciating the Yen. The idea is to fight “deflation” and increase exports.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Fed Gearing Up to Scale Back on QE / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Bloomberg
Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank president Dennis Lockhart told Bloomberg TV's Michael McKee today that Fed officials are committed to stimulus even as divergent views on when to start paring back bond purchases create a "mixed message" to investors.
Lockhart said, "There certainly seems to be an acute fixation on the timing of any adjustment to the asset purchase program and I guess I would just encourage everyone to not lose sight of the bigger picture." He went on to say, "Any adjustment is not a major policy shift. The high level of accommodation will stay in place."
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Monday, June 03, 2013
Economies Addicted to Low Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Michael_Pento
It is amazing so many investors are oblivious to the fact that the developed world is completely addicted to artificially-produced low interest rates. Perhaps that is why there is still a debate over whether the ending of QE will adversely affect the economy, and if rising rates can occur within the context of a healthy economy.
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Friday, May 31, 2013
Is the US Treasury Bond Market Turning? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Simit_Patel
Perhaps the biggest macroeconomic event to watch for is the potential that the US Treasury bond market is turning south -- and that bond yields will rise significantly. This has many implications for the global economy, as capital flowing out of the US Treasury bond market -- the largest non-currency financial market -- will drastically impact values in other markets.
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Friday, May 31, 2013
Why U.S. Treasury Bonds Are Still the Worst Investment / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: InvestmentContrarian
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Savers have had a difficult time finding suitable places to allocate capital from which they can derive income. I’ve previously warned against allocating new funds to the investment strategy of U.S. Treasuries, as this would likely be the worst investment over the next decade.
Now, it appears that investors are increasingly coming to the same conclusion that I stated several months ago in these pages: U.S. Treasuries are set for a significant drop in price.
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Thursday, May 30, 2013
Fed Money Printing Real Conundrum! / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Robert_M_Williams
Back in the heady days of Alan Greenspan, when you couldn’t identify a bubble until it was too late, the Maestro was busy printing. The money went into the tech stocks up until that train went off the tracks in early 2000. So the Fed started to print even more and that led to a housing bubble. As most of us are painfully aware, the housing blew up in 2007 so Greenspan’s predecessor, Ben Bernanke, had to put the printing press into a higher gear. The Fed then created mandates in order to justify the excesses and they included increased growth and employment. Unemployment must drop to 6% or less and growth must surpass 3% while keeping inflation at 2%. The end result of all this is a chart of the money supply that looks like this:
Monday, May 27, 2013
Funny Money Turns Serious / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Brady_Willett
When former Asian Development Bank head, Haruhiko Kuroda, was nominated to be the next Bank of Japan Governor on February 27, 2013 he was not shy about stating his intentions: “there is "plenty of room for monetary easing”” (WSJ). And after landing the job as BOJ Chief, Kuroda immediately confirmed that he would do “whatever it takes” to end deflation. Well, a mere two months and a massive new printing scheme later, Kuroda is already on the defensive, arguing that a recent jump in bonds yields is manageable and asset prices are not behaving irrationally.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
High Risk of Japan Economic Instability as Rates Rise Even With 70% Debt Monetization / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Mike_Shedlock
When political leaders do out of there way to make make mollifying statements on the economy, it's a sure thing the opposite is about to happen. Platitudes are flowing in Japan as Haruhiko Kuroda, Japan’s central bank governor, says the risk of systemic instability is “not large”.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Why Bernanke and His Pals Are Terrified / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Graham_Summers
Two big events have occurred/ are occurring.
1) Chicago Fed President, Charles Evans who is one of the biggest pushers for QE, stated that the Fed has “the appropriate monetary policy in place” and that the economy is “improving quite a lot.”
2) The Bank of Japan is beginning a two-day policy meeting today.
Regarding #1, Evans has been one of the biggest pushers for more QE. Throughout 2011 and 2012, every time he appeared on TV he stated that the Fed should do more.
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Japan Debt Crisis Is 30 Times Bigger Than Greece! / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Graham_Summers
Japan has fueled much of this latest rally in stocks, driving the marketing first with promises of money printing by the Prime Minister in November 2012, and then a massive $1.2 trillion QE program announced by the Bank of Japan last month.
The result of this has been a collapse in the Yen and a 70%+ rally in the Nikkei in the last six months.
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Friday, May 17, 2013
The Biggest Financial Bubble About to Burst! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: DeepCaster_LLC
“Nothing is normal: not the economy, not the financial system, not the financial markets and not the political system. The system remains still in the throes and aftershocks of the 2008 panic and the near-systemic collapse, and from the ongoing responses to same by the Federal Reserve and federal government. Further panic is possible and hyperinflation is inevitable.
“The economic and systemic solvency crises of the last eight years continue. There never was an actual recovery following the economic downturn that began in 2006 and collapsed into 2008 and 2009. What followed was a protracted period of business stagnation that began to turn down anew in second- and third-quarter 2012. The official recovery seen in GDP has been a statistical illusion generated by the use of understated inflation in calculating key economic series (see Public Comment on Inflation). Nonetheless, given the nature of official reporting, the renewed downturn likely will gain recognition as the second-dip in a double- or multiple-dip recession.
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Friday, May 17, 2013
How the U.S. Government Makes $120 Billion From Student Loans Misery / Interest-Rates / Student Finances
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: Business has been good for the federal government when it comes to student loans.
Over the past five years, student loans have generated profits of $120 billion for the Department of Education.
And the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) put the take from student loans for the 2013 fiscal year at $48.6 billion - helped along by a change in 2010 that eliminated the middleman and made the Education Department the direct lender for all government-backed loans.
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Warning: How the Bond Market Bubble Will Secretly Sabotage Your Retirement / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: A tool intended to make retirement investing easier may result in many Americans taking an unwitting hit to their portfolios when the bond bubble finally pops.
We're talking about target-date funds, designed to be "set it and forget it"-style retirement vehicles for people who don't want to bother with actively managing a portfolio.
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Warning U.S. Treasury Bond Bull Market May Be Over / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: DailyGainsLetter
Moe Zulfiqar writes: When the financial crisis took grip on the U.S. economy, investors fled the stock market and ran towards bonds—more specifically, high-quality U.S. government bonds. The reason behind this was very simple: they would rather invest their money in something where they knew their capital was safe than in the stock market, which was uncertain at the very best.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Why I'm NOT Betting on Higher Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: DailyWealth
Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: Bill Gross is the world's greatest bond investor. But I'm not betting on his latest market call... And you shouldn't either.
Gross is to the bond market what Warren Buffett is to the stock market...
Just like Buffett, Gross has managed to trounce his peers for decades even as his assets under management have grown to an incredible size. Gross' firm PIMCO now manages over $2 trillion in assets, making it the world's largest bond investor.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Return of the Bond Vigilante... in Japan / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Jeff_Berwick
On April 11th we went public stating that shorting Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) was an effective means of, "Profiting from The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It" (TEOTMSAWKI).
Less than a month later, on May 10th, after a month replete with numerous halts of the market over intraday crashes JBGs had their worst day in the last five years. Yields rose higher by 11bps to 70bps in the 10 year bond and ended up 10 basis points higher on the day.
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Monday, May 13, 2013
Hedge Funds Are Pouring Into Distressed Debt / Interest-Rates / Corporate Bonds
By: Money_Morning
Greg Madison writes: Regulators have demanded that banks stop engaging in so much risky behavior - chiefly, distressed debt investing. And the banks have begun to curtail this type of investing.
But this has led to an unprecedented - though not unpredictable - situation: It seems the hedge funds are picking up the slack.
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