Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Spain €100 billion Bank Bailout Necessary But Not Sufficient, Italy Federalism, Debt Traps and Competition / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
We woke up this weekend to a €100 billion "rescue" of Spanish banks, and the initial reaction of the market was relief. But did we not just see this movie, but with Greek subtitles rather than Spanish? Was this another of those "necessary but not sufficient" plot lines that Europe is so good at? Kick the can down the road and hope for a happy ending?
Pardon my skepticism, but I see numerous problems. In the first place, €100 billion will not be enough. While the current estimates are closer to €40 billion (if you ask the Spaniards), JP Morgan estimates it will be more like €350 billion. Others estimate more or less, but €100 billion is decidedly optimistic. Even the Spanish authorities are acknowledging that there is another 35% downside for the housing market, which is the main source of the losses. It appears that has NOT been included in the guesstimates.
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Keep Debt Crisis Eyes on Italy and India / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2012
When we talk about economies that are looking horrendous these days, it is important to remember that there are other economies out there looking just as bad or worse, either right now or in the near future. The reason is because the global economy is so damn inter-connected that no large national economy can sustain any modicum of growth on its own. This fact is obviously the most apparent in a region such as the Eurozone, which forms a common market and shares a common currency.
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Monday, June 11, 2012
Student Loans and the Redistribution Of Wealth / Interest-Rates / Student Finances
With more than $1 trillion outstanding and growing at a rate of over $100 billion a year, student loans have leaped past the credit card and auto loan markets in size. The students will not be the only ones paying, however, for the exploding volume of student loans may contribute to a reduction in the future standard of living for tens of millions of retirees and retirement investors.
On a fundamental level, the student loan crisis is about two major redistributions of wealth - one of which is occurring now, with the other taking place over the decades to come. And each redistribution of wealth could not occur in a free market, but is dependent upon federal government intervention.
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Monday, June 11, 2012
Spain and The Runaway Euro Bailout Train / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Spain finally bowed to the rising interest rates and the billions of euros worth of bad loans at Spain's regional governments to ask for a loan. After emergency talks between Euro Zone finance ministers on Saturday, Spain will get up to $125 billion from the European Union (EU) to bail out out its banking system.
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
Top Ten Questions To Ask About Spain's Bailout / Interest-Rates / Spain
1. Recapitalisation of Banks: Will the commissioned bank auditors and global markets conclude that €100bn is enough to recapitalise Spanish banks?
2. Access to Sovereign Debt Markets: Will Spain continue to have access to markets to be able to sell its government bonds post its first banking bailout?
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
Spain No Such Thing as Bailout Lite, €30 Billion Needed? Now €100 Billion; Contagion of Economic Idiocy / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
A few days ago Spain was purportedly going to need another €30 billion to €70 billion to recapitalize Spanish banks. I suggested the amount would be at least triple that and it did not take long to do so.
Yahoo! Finance reports Spanish bailout could reach 100 billion euros
Read full article... Read full article...A bailout for Spain's teetering banks, once requested by Madrid, could amount to as much as 100 billion euros, two senior EU sources told Reuters on Saturday.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Greece is A Dysfunctional Nation, A Quadrillion Here, A Quadrillion There / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
dysfunctional [dɪsˈfʌŋkʃənəl] adj
1. (Medicine) Med (of an organ or part) not functioning normally
2. (especially of a family) characterized by a breakdown of normal or beneficial relationships between members of the group
European leaders launched the euro project in the last century as an experiment to see whether political hope could become economic reality. What they have done is create one of the most dysfunctional economic systems in history. And the distortions inherent in that system are now playing out in an increasingly dysfunctional social order. Today we look at some rather disturbing recent events and wonder about the actual costs of that experiment. What type of "therapy" will be needed to treat the dysfunctional family that Europe has become? And maybe I'll throw in a "fun" item to finish with, so let's get started.
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
The Bond Market Boom / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Upon turning to this page, the speaker noted the 5-year returns show "an absolute flooding of the market and system with capital by central banks [QE, ESFS, LTRO...]. This has been an incredibly distortionary period." (The quotation is from notes, so is not exact.)
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Friday, June 08, 2012
Bankruptia Spain To Seek Imminent German Bailout to Limit Greece Election Contagion / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Reuters has let the cat out of the bag Friday concerning secret panic driven talks concerning an imminent bailout of Spain's bankrupt banks, possibly as early as Saturday afternoon. Which follows fast on the heels of the credit ratings agency Fitch downgrading of Spanish Government bonds to just above junk status less than 2 weeks away from the contagion inducing Greek elections. All of which were contributing to what amounts to a state of Financial Armageddon in progress as a chain reaction of detonations takes place across the Euro-zone.
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Friday, June 08, 2012
Financial Collapse At Hand: When is "Sooner or Later"? / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Will the Fed Provide New Financial Accommodation Soon? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
The economic scene has changed in many ways since the April 24-25 FOMC meeting. Labor market data for May have been disappointing with a paltry 69,000 increase in payrolls and an 8.2% unemployment rate in May. Auto sales slowed slightly to an annual rate of 13.8 million units during May from a 14.4 million sales pace in April, real GDP eked out only a 1.9% increase in first quarter, and the financial crisis of the eurozone presents a significant downside risk not only to the US but also to the entire global economy. Market participants will be watching closely Chairman Bernanke’s testimony tomorrow at the Joint Economic Committee and Vice-Chair Janet Yellen’s remarks tonight.
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Thursday, June 07, 2012
U.S. Treasury Bond Markets Black Hole Dynamics / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Man-made financial phenomena imitate nature, but more importantly they are subject to the powerful laws of economic nature. The Wall Street financial engineers have built vast structures, which tragically are crumbling and soon will fall to the ground. Vast illusory wealth will be lost, never truly garnered. The fiat currency system has required tremendous efforts not only to build the financial skyscrapers ever higher each year, but also to provide support structures that prevent their topple. With the aid of the subservient press, an illusion of wealth, prosperity, and stability has been fashioned and defended. It is all being blown away by the powerful storms known as the global financial crisis. The term has even earned an acronym for the popular lexicon GFC. My alternative view is that the global monetary war is in full swing, World War III with the USDollar at the epicenter of the conflict and pecuniary violence. A few years ago in June 2005, the Jackass penned an obscure article entitled "Financial Market Physics" just for amusement. Thanks to Vronsky and his intrepid work, the Gold-Eagle archive still lives (for old article CLICK HERE). In it was described momentum, pendulums, traction, leverage, resistance, support, inertia, coiled springs, meltdowns, high versus low pressure differentials, flow dynamics, imbalances, and the infamous black hole. The final concept is of extreme relevance today.
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Thursday, June 07, 2012
Playing QE III Game of Chicken / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Most investors and market pundits continue to misdiagnose the reason behind the worldwide economic malaise. The underlying problem isn't "uncertainty" or any other platitudes Wall Street and politicians like to offer. The truth is that massive sovereign debt defaults (if central banks allow them to be written down honestly) are very deflationary in nature.
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Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Student Loans: The Next Scam To Bubble, Pop, Collapse / Interest-Rates / Student Finances
Yes, dear reader, the market seems to have turned. Friday was a disaster…
“Grim Job Report Sinks Markets,” reported The Wall Street Journal.
We’ve had our “Crash Alert” flag up for the last two weeks. Hope it helped.
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Wednesday, June 06, 2012
The Pernicious Dynamics of Deb, Deleveraging Deflation / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2012
At this moment, the news media is constantly clamoring about the "Three Ds" that are buffeting the markets: debt, deleveraging, and deflation. We intuitively sense that they're linked -- but how, exactly?
Understanding this linking is critical; as debt has fueled the global expansion, it will also dominate its contraction.
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Tuesday, June 05, 2012
SS €uro is Taking On Serious Water! / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
The SS €uro is taking serious water. At the hastily called EU Summit Captains meeting on the Brussels Bridge, it was agreed that the best course of action, despite the worsening waves of bank runs, was to simply instruct the orchestra to continuing playing the same old familiar tune and order the rearrangement of the deck chairs.However, all the captains somberly recognized there were neither sufficient lifeboats nor anyone willing to come to their rescue. As usual they were in complete disagreement on what to do, they knew they had insufficient resources for anything dramatic and they were well aware the public passengers had no tolerance for any cold water austere attempts for the sake of survival.
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Tuesday, June 05, 2012
U.S. Treasury Bond 10 Year Yield Could Drop to 1% / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: In the wake of Friday's disastrous jobs number, 10-year Treasury Note yields finally fell through the 1.5% level, trading as low 1.44% on the day.
That plunge took many traders, talking heads and politicians by surprise.
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Tuesday, June 05, 2012
The Euro-zone Solution Illusion / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Nobody, in my book, slices and dices data more thoroughly or convincingly than Greg Weldon. In this week's Outside the Box, he first dispels the illusion that either of the two most-expected outcomes of the growing eurozone crisis is really any kind of a solution – neither expelling Greece nor keeping Greece in the club is going to work, he argues – and then, in a feat of legerdemain, he conjures up an alternative that just might work – and backs up his idea as only Greg can. But is this a rabbit he's pulled out of his hat, or is it ... a Black Eagle?
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Monday, June 04, 2012
Will the ECB and Fed Follow Where China Leads? / Interest-Rates / Global Economy
Every month, policymakers track purchasing managers' indices (PMI) around the world as they consider fiscal and monetary actions. To us, a PMI is a measure of health of companies around the world, because it includes output, new orders, employment and prices across manufacturing, construction, retail and service sectors.
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Monday, June 04, 2012
The Pain in Spain Flashes Financial Armageddon, Inflation Wars / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
This article continues from - Euro-zone Galloping Towards Financial Armageddon
Spain is bankrupting, its central government is bankrupting, its local government is already bankrupt along with most of its banks that have been busy hiding most of their bad loan losses on crashed property developments. The credit markets despite ECB support are fast closing to Spain as it is being forced to pay credit crisis extreme financial armageddon rates of interest to borrow.
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