Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, April 15, 2013
Euro-zone Debt Crisis is Back / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
David Zeiler writes: The Eurozone debt crisis that was supposed to have blown over long ago instead has become more like an endless game of Whac-a-Mole, with both new and old problems popping up faster than European leaders can bop them.
As Europe's finance ministers gathered in Dublin today (Friday), they faced at least half a dozen major issues threatening the fiscal health of the Eurozone.
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
All of a Sudden, 2013 Becomes Another Trillion-Dollar Deficit Year / Interest-Rates / US Debt
In its monthly statement of receipts and outlays for the month, the Treasury Department reported that the U.S. government incurred a budget deficit of $107 billion for the month of March 2013. (Source: Department of the Treasury, April 10, 2013.) This monthly budget deficit was a result of the government spending $293 billion while only taking in $186 billion in March.
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Thursday, April 11, 2013
Short Japan Bonds to Profit From the End of the Monetary System / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
While most people will lose their shirts as The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) continues down its predictable path there are some who will make fortunes.
At The Dollar Vigilante we’ve already been ahead of the curve on many profitable ventures related to TEOTMSAWKI. TDV Senior Editor, Ed Bugos, has been a proponent of owning gold since 2000 when it was at $200 and upon TDV’s founding in 2010 we immediately added gold as the largest part of our portfolio while it was trading near $1,200 and quickly saw that rise to nearly $2,000.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The Beginning of the End for Japanese Bonds / Interest-Rates / Japanese Interest Rates
Kyle Bass, managing partner at Hayman Capital Management, told Bloomberg TV's Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schaztker on "Market Makers" today that he thinks "it's the beginning of the end" for Japanese bonds. He said, "When I started sharing our views more globally it was the middle of 2010 and I said I believe the stress would begin to show itself in the next three years. Pretty much three years in, we're close, and the stress is beginning to show."
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Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Global Sovereign Debt Skyrockets, Bubble to Burst / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
Mitchell Clark writes: “Risk” is a four-letter word.
It’s the kind of thing you wish you spent a lot more time thinking about before a shock actually happens.
Right now, the Federal Reserve is re-inflating assets while sovereign debt skyrockets. It’s been doing so for a number of years now, and the stock market is moving.
Saturday, April 06, 2013
Forget About The Fed Dialing Back QE3 – U.S. Buy Bonds! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The economic recovery has been progressing so well that it had become almost a sure thing the Fed will begin phasing out its easy money policy and QE stimulus programs much earlier than planned, possibly beginning as early as this summer.
Even the Fed seems to be preparing markets for that probability with its recent statements, and speeches by individual Fed governors.
Friday, April 05, 2013
U.S. Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
As I scanned my charts I thought I’d got a little off the beaten track to highlight something that is deeply affecting us. That is Treasury yields.
The reason I said this is because Treasury yields may have made their Master Cycle low today, or may do so in the next few trading days. The Cycles Model captures this event by showing that yields may have been stopped at the mid-Cycle support line at 17.53. There may be a challenge or a probe lower, but the uptrend line is just beneath it, so we will know very soon whether it is successful in turning Yields back up or not. If so, the uptrend in yields is preserved.
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Friday, April 05, 2013
The First Crack In The Bond Market Is A Fact / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2013
There are two main issues in the Cypriot banking crisis. The first one is related to the general principle of loans: it is axiomatic that all loans get paid either by the borrower or by the lender. This is the fundamental relationship that anyone has with the bank. When you deposit money into the bank, in your mind it is your money. In the bank’s mind, and from a legal point of view, it is a loan to the bank. If the bank makes foolish investments and loses money [including (y)ours], someone has to pay it.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Zero Interest Rates is Not Economic Stimulus, Rather a Death Knell / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2013
The propaganda has been thick over the last few years, especially since the US banking system suffered a fatal heart attack in September 2008. It has not recovered since, still insolvent, still wrecked, having returned a zombie center with a USTBond carry trade core and continued money laundering basement lifeline. The Jackass is tired beyond words, beyond description, of hearing that the Zero Percent Interest Policy is being kept as a stimulus measure to encourage continued economic recovery. It is neither a stimulant, nor is the USEconomy in recovery mode. The official 0% rate signals a death knell to the national financial foundation and economic vibrancy, the climax event slow in its pathogenesis following the departure from the Gold Standard in 1971. The official 0% FedFunds rate (call it 25 basis points, no matter) is a direct signal of terminal illness for the entire capitalist structures within both the United States and its Western partners who stupidly or helplessly follow its lead. They followed the US lead in the housing & mortgage bubble disaster with complete wreckage, yet they continue to follow the US monetary lead. They claim to have no choice. They do indeed have a choice, to discard the USDollar and to sell out of the USTreasury Bond, to impose a Gold Standard.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Is the Fed Creating an Auto Subprime Loan Bubble? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Terry Allen writes: Loans to subprime automobile borrowers are presently surging as a direct result of the current aggressive stimulus policies imposed by the US Federal Reserve. For example, deals instigated by car dealers soared by over 18% during 2012 involving over 6.5 million high risk borrowers. Reviews of court files by prominent market analysts have disclosed that auto subprime lenders are now one of the main reasons why so many Americans are forced to file for bankruptcy.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The Only Way Forward For Europe Is Splittsville / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Seeing Spanish and Italian bond yields drop over the past few days, it's impossible not to wonder what it is the markets, whoever they're comprised of, can't seem to figure out. Like that the Italian cloud will hang over Europe well into summer, Cyprus is falling to scandalous bits, French president Hollande is hanging on to his job for dear life because his friend and Budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was found to be an ordinary big swindler, and in Spain even the King Carlos' daughter Princess Christina is now a suspect in a financial scandal (PM Rajoy's antics will resurface soon).
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Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Japan's Monetary Madness in Times of Unsustainable Deficits / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2013
Unsustainable debt. Depression-era fiscal policy. Monetary madness. Welcome to Japan. You may not live or invest in Japan, but your investments may well be affected by what is unfolding in the Land of the Rising Sun. Be prepared.
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Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Central Banks Delay of Game. Five (point eight) Yards / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Grant Williams : Section 6 of the NFL official rulebook contains five articles, all of which deal with infringements that result in a 'delay of game' penalty.
It appears as though the powers that be frown upon the idea of players wasting time in the hope that they can hasten the sound of the whistle whilst holding an advantage.
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Friday, March 29, 2013
Cyprus and the Unraveling of Fractional-Reserve Banking / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
The “Cyprus deal” as it has been widely referred to in the media may mark the next to last act in the the slow motion collapse of fractional-reserve banking that began with the implosion of the savings-and-loan industry in the U.S. in the late 1980s.
This trend continued with the currency crises in Russia, Mexico, East Asia, and Argentina in the 1990s in which fractional-reserve banking played a decisive role. The unraveling of fractional-reserve banking became visible even to the average depositor during the financial meltdown of 2008 that ignited bank runs on some of the largest and most venerable financial institutions in the world. The final collapse was only averted by the multi-trillion dollar bailout of U.S. and foreign banks by the Federal Reserve.
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Thursday, March 28, 2013
Why We Can't Avoid Ben Bernanke's "Monetary Cliff" / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Martin Hutchinson writes: When it comes to the Federal Reserve, an accurate "reading of the tea leaves" means paying attention to all of the fine print.
And while the markets cheered last week's FOMC meeting with yet another rally, a deeper look at Ben Bernanke's press conference left me with a slightly different take.
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Saturday, March 09, 2013
The Coming Ponzi U.S. Treasury Bond Market Crash / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
It is my contention that the 70-year debt supercycle has come to an end.
To put the current financial situation in perspective, here's a long-term history of the debt-to-GDP ratio, which reached a record high at the beginning of the current crisis. It was a dramatic change in 2009, unlike anything since the aftermath of the Great Depression.
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Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Gentlemen, Start Your Money Printing Presses / Interest-Rates / Fiat Currency
In his Congressional testimony last week in Washington, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took time to downplay the significance of the few dissenting voices on the Fed's Open Market Committee (FOMC). Those statements, combined with an even more dovish statement by Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen earlier this week, clearly reaffirm the Fed's indefinite commitment to $85 billion of monthly quantitative easing. (It is surprising that those figures failed to invoke the attention drawn by the $85 billion in annual cuts detailed in the "sequester"). But the stock markets have gotten the message loud and clear and are setting records on a daily basis. The apparent triumphs of the Federal Reserve in pumping up stock and real estate prices, without triggering a sell-off in the dollar or easily visible inflation, have not been lost by observers around the world.
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Saturday, March 02, 2013
What the Bank of Japan, China’s Government and the Fed Have in Common / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
As we’ve noted in recent articles, the US Federal Reserve has blown another bubble in stocks and facilitating the exact same risk-taking behavior that brought about the 2008.
The Fed realizing that it’s done this, which is why it’s now trying to manage down expectations of future stimulus (see the multiple suggestions from Fed officials that the Fed might reduce QE before hitting its unemployment target).
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Saturday, March 02, 2013
U.S. Treasury Bond Market's Last Bull Run / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Steve McDonald writes: When the Italians couldn’t agree on one candidate, and the U.S. faced it’s so called sequester, it may have been the last shot of life support for the bond market, for a long time.
This is very likely the last hurrah for the 30-year bond bull market. It may also be the last chance for the multitudes that have been plowing money into bond funds to take profits and save their retirements.
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Friday, March 01, 2013
The U.S. Fed's Tightening Pipe Dream / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
Testifying before the US Senate this past Tuesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made an extraordinary claim about its bloated balance sheet: "We could exit without ever selling by letting it run off." What Bernanke means here is that the Fed could simply hold its Treasuries and agency bonds until they mature, at which point the government would then be forced to pay the Fed back the principal amount. Through this process, the Fed's unprecedented and inflationary position will be gradually and placidly unwound.
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