Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
What to Do NOW in Case of a Future Banking System Breakdown / Interest-Rates / Global Financial System
By: MoneyMetals
The banking system may not be as sound we’ve been led to believe. It continues to get propped up through central bank interventions, which strongly suggests it wouldn’t be able to stand on its own.
Last Thursday, the Federal Reserve injected another $115 billion into financial markets via “temporary operations.” The Fed is targeting the repo market in particular, through which banks lend to each other on an overnight basis.
For some reason, banks have grown weary of committing liquidity to each other in what should be one of the safest lending markets on the planet.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Fed Can't See the Bubbles Through the Lather / Interest-Rates / Liquidity Bubble
By: Michael_Pento
Recently, there has been a parade of central bankers along with their lackeys on Wall Street coming on the financial news networks and desperately trying to convince investors that there are no bubbles extant in the world today. Indeed, the Fed sees no economic or market imbalances anywhere that should give perma-bulls cause for concern. You can listen to Jerome Powell’s upbeat assessment of the situation in his own words during the latest FOMC press conference here. The Fed Chair did, however, manage to acknowledge that corporate debt levels are in fact a bit on the high side. But he added that “we have been monitoring it carefully and taken appropriate steps.” By taking appropriate steps to reduce debt levels Powell must mean slashing interest rates and going back into QE. The problem with that strategy being that is exactly what caused the debt binge and overleveraged condition of corporations in the first place.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 07, 2019
The Fed Is Chasing Its Own Tail; It Doesn’t Care What You Think / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Kelsey_Williams
Did you ever watch a dog get caught up in the act of chasing its own tail? It continues to run in a circle as the object of its fascination and intention continues to elude it. The action is quite comical, almost hilarious.
The expectations of the animal are both foolish and amusing. You might feel inclined to want to communicate the unrealistic expectations to the engaged participant, but you know your efforts would be in vain.
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Thursday, November 07, 2019
Shades of 2007–2008 - Modern Central Banking Is More Vulnerable than We Think / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: John_Mauldin
Banks are a place where you store your cash, right? Not exactly.When you deposit money in a checking or savings account, you aren’t just letting the bank hold it on your behalf. You are lending the bank that money and the bank is borrowing it.
That’s why deposits show as a liability on the bank’s balance sheet.
We think of banks as lenders, and they are, but they’re also borrowers. They make money by lending at higher rates than they pay as borrowers, and by leveraging their deposits via fractional reserves.
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Monday, November 04, 2019
The Fed’s Policy Is Like Swatting Flies with Nuclear Weapons / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
The Federal Open Market Committee had an unscheduled meeting on October 4. That happens occasionally and they often don’t reveal it occurred until the next regular meeting. That would mean Oct. 30, in this case.
But for some reason (and you can bet they had a reason) they decided to announce this one on Oct. 11.
In between, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in an Oct. 8 speech that the Fed would soon start growing its balance sheet again.
Saturday, November 02, 2019
Fed’s Own Forecasts Again Dead Wrong as QE4 Accelerates / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: MoneyMetals
Precious metals markets enter November’s trading with bulls eying a potential year-end rally.
Gold and silver prices did manage to post gains on Wednesday and Thursday after the Federal Reserve announced a quarter point rate cut. But the Fed followed up its move with language suggesting interest rate policy is now on pause.
News Anchor #1: The Federal Reserve cut the benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point. It's now at 1.5% to 1.75%. The rate cuts come on a global slowdown; they say. Also muted inflation. Now the Fed does signal in this statement a pause for future rate cuts. The Federal Reserve statement changes the words from “act as appropriate” to “assess.”
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Thursday, October 31, 2019
What Has Freaked Out The US Fed? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The US Fed cut rates again by 25 basis points, the third time this year. Prior to the start of 2019, the US Fed gave guidance that 3 to 4 more rate increases were planned for 2019. What the heck happened to the US Fed and what has them so freaked out that they completely changed direction on their expectations for the US and Global economy so quickly? Source: Yahoo Finance
It is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that the US Fed expected the many years of near-zero interest rates between 2009 and 2015 to act as a fuel for future growth. The problem was that no real growth materialized until just before the 2016 US Presidential elections – and even that was relatively muted. The US Dollar had continued to rally from July 2011 lows well into the 2016 election date. The expectations for the US economy hinged on who won the election. After President Trump won, the markets started an immediate rally expecting business-friendly policies and government.
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Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Why Nobody Chants “End the Fed” Anymore / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: MoneyMetals
Americans hated it when the Federal Reserve handed trillions of dollars to crooked Wall Street banks following the 2008 Financial Crisis. Politicians were confronted about the merits of central banking and bailouts.
For the first time in history, college students were chanting “End the Fed” at campaign rallies as Ron Paul took the central bank to task during his presidential campaigns.
Virtually everyone in America vehemently opposed the central bank handing piles of cash to the same bankers whose greed and fraud had caused the Financial Crisis.
Monday, October 28, 2019
What if the Fed Stops Cutting Interest Rates? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne
Fed rate cuts have been the driving force of the recent gains in precious metals.
This is not a surprise to our readers as since 2018 we argued that a shift in Fed policy from rate hikes to rate cuts would springboard the next big move. History argued the same.
The market is showing a roughly 90% chance the Fed will cut rates this week which indicates the market has essentially already priced in the rate cut.
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Saturday, October 26, 2019
The Fed’s “Not QE” Is Morphing into “QE4ever” / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: MoneyMetals
Another week, another new and expanded repo market intervention by the Federal Reserve. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York intervened twice with fresh liquidity injections. Fed officials raised their offerings for overnight repos up from $75 billion to a staggering $120 billion.
This comes on top of the $60 billion per month in Treasury bill purchases that will extend well into next year and possibly beyond. Over the past month alone, the Fed's balance sheet has soared by $200 billion.
You might think numbers like these should be quite alarming to investors and to anyone who holds U.S. dollars. But the strange thing about these Fed interventions is that hardly anyone seems alarmed. There’s no sense of rising risk being priced into the stock market. And the mainstream media is barely even mentioning these massive transfers of paper wealth.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2019
A Look at Peak Debt / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2019
By: Harry_Dent
David Stockman, Dr. Lacy Hunt and I agreed on a lot of things last week at the seventh annual Irrational Economic Summit in D.C. In the September issue of Boom & Bust, I talked about corporate debt being the greatest threat globally this time around. The worst is in the emerging world that used cheap printed dollars from the developed countries, primarily the U.S., to fund a debt binge concentrated in the corporate sectors. But our corporate sector also added a lot to their debt and only 39% of their bonds are investment grade, with 39% BBB and 22% junk.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2019
How High Debt Affects Bond Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
By: Harry_Dent
The only Phd economist I allow to speak each year at the Irrational Economic Summit is Dr. Lacy Hunt. (You can watch his presentation from this year’s conference here.) Lacy can take that complex science and still see the forest for the trees. He can still find reality from all of that great theory to real-life outcomes.It also helps that he advises a $4 billion bond fund at Housington Management and has to get the reality of bond interest rates right or face the consequences – which he has for this entire boom!
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Tuesday, October 22, 2019
The Coming Great Global Debt Reset / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2019
By: Richard_Mills
In the first quarter of 2019, global debt hit $246.5 trillion.
Encouraged by lower interest rates, governments went on a borrowing binge as they ramped up spending, adding $3 trillion to world debt in Q1 alone. It reverses a trend that started in the beginning of 2018, of reducing debt burdens, when global debt reached its highest on record, $248 trillion.
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Monday, October 21, 2019
Learn to Spot Reliable Trading Setups: ANY Market, Any Market Time Frame / Interest-Rates / Learn to Trade
By: EWI
Hi Reader,
On October 23, you are invited for a rare, free opportunity to see for yourself how to use simple, everyday price charts to find reliable trade setups -- in any market and any time frame.
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Friday, October 18, 2019
US Treasury Bonds Pause Near Resistance Before The Next Rally / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Chris_Vermeulen
Our research team believes the US Treasuries and the US Dollar will continue to strengthen over the next 2 to 6+ weeks as foreign market and emerging market credit and debt concerns outweigh any concerns originating from the US economy or political theater. Overall, the major global economies will likely continue to see strength related to their currencies and debt instruments simply because the foreign market and emerging markets are dramatically more fragile than the more mature major global economies.
We believe the US Treasuries may surprise investors by rallying from current levels, near price resistance, to levels above $151 on the TLT chart.
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Friday, October 18, 2019
Federal Reserve’s New QE Transfers Wealth to Its Owner Banks / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: MoneyMetals
Metals investors are positioning themselves for rapidly developing political and geopolitical events, as well as a rapidly expanding Federal Reserve balance sheet.
What started out as a limited intervention to provide temporary liquidity to overnight lending markets has morphed into a massive $60-billion-per-month Treasury-buying campaign. By some measures, it’s even bigger than the last Quantitative Easing program.
The Fed has yet to fully explain why this is all necessary given the lack of an immediate crisis in the real economy. Last week, Fed chair Jerome Powell took great pains to insist that their expanded repo market operations are “not QE” – only to announce a massive new Treasury bill buying program on Friday.
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Wednesday, October 16, 2019
This Is Not a Money Printing Press / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Peter_Schiff
Rene Magritte's 1929 painting "The Treachery of Images," depicts a tobacco pipe with a caption that reads "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," (French for "This is not a pipe"). Everyone who has taken a course in modern art knows that Magritte's exercise in contradiction was meant to draw a distinction between a real thing and a representation of that thing. Perhaps we should send Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a beret and an easel as he is attempting a similarly surrealistic take on monetary policy.
Early last week, the Chairman announced a new, as yet unnamed, Fed program through which the bank will now buy regular amounts of short-term U.S. government debt. Seeking to counter the rumblings that a new form of quantitative easing would be seen as an admission that the economy may be in trouble, Chairman Powell asserted during the annual meeting of NABE on October 8, "This is not QE. In no sense is this QE". In other words, "Ceci n'est pas QE."
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Tuesday, October 15, 2019
“Baghad Jerome” Powell Denies the Fed Is Using Financial Crisis Tools / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: MoneyMetals
Jerome Powell has something in common with Bagdad Bob, Saddam Hussein’s infamous press secretary. They’re both liars, suggests Money Metals podcast guest Craig Hemke of the TF Metals Report.
Telling obvious lies with a straight face is part of Powell’s job description. He hopes to maintain order even though anyone who is paying attention knows something extraordinary is going on.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Will Interest Rate Cuts Be Enough? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Michael_Pento
The main stream financial media is absolutely ebullient about global central banks’ renewed enthusiasm to cut interest rates to a level that is even lower than they already are. And, most importantly, Wall Street is completely confident that theses marginally-lower borrowing costs will not only be enough to pull the global economy out of its malaise; but will also be sufficient to provide enough monetary thrust to blow asset bubbles into the thermosphere.
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Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Whatever Happened to Philippines Debt Slavery? / Interest-Rates / Phillippines
By: Dan_Steinbock
In early 2017, a Forbes contributor claimed President Duterte will bankrupt the Philippines economy in five years. Half of the period is gone. Will the country default in 2022?In May 2017, Forbes released a column, which claimed that “New Philippine Debt of $167 Billion Could Balloon To $452 Billion: China Will Benefit.” It was written by Anders Corr, who was portrayed as an independent geopolitical risk analyst. He predicted that the Philippines would be in debt slavery at the end of the Duterte era.
Now that half of that prediction period has passed, let’s see whether Corr was right.
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