Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, July 26, 2010
Money Supply Divergence TMS1 vs. TMS2 vs. M2, What does it Mean? / Interest-Rates / Deflation
Inquiring minds are once again digging deep into money supply questions. They are intrigued by the fact that money supply measures M2 and TMS1 are plunging towards zero, while TMS2 is still sporting a hefty 10+% year-over-year growth.
TMS stands for "True Money Supply". The suffix (1 or 2) stands for alternate measures, one including savings accounts and the other not. M2 is a widely used Fed aggregate for money.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Surging Stock Markets Push Bond Yields Higher / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market was off slightly last week as a surging stock market knocked yields 3-6 basis points higher for the week. The bond futures traded up to new 18 month highs on Wednesday before settling back a couple of points during the last two trading sessions before the weekend. While stocks and commodities finished a positive week, the bond market continues to scream double dip and deflation. With the 2 year yield just a snick north of one half percent the bond market is starting to tell us that the Fed is increasingly likely to stick with its Zero Interest Rate Policy for the foreseeable future. Until the next wave of credit concerns hits the market, bonds will continue to have a positive fundamental backdrop.
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Sunday, July 25, 2010
U.S. is Insolvent and Faces Bankruptcy as a Pure Debtor Nation / Interest-Rates / US Debt
China Calls Our Bluff: America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff.
As the Financial Times notes, the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a joke:
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Saturday, July 24, 2010
U.S. Need Not Fear Sovereign Debt Crisis, Unlike Greece, It Actually Is Sovereign / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Last week, a Chinese rating agency downgraded U.S. debt from triple A and number one globally, to “double A with a negative outlook” and only thirteenth worldwide. The downgrade renewed fears that the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece will soon reach America. That is the concern, but the U.S. is distinguished from Greece in that its debt is denominated in its own currency, over which it has sovereign control. The government can simply print the money it needs, or borrow it from a central bank that prints it. We should not let deficit hawks and short sellers dissuade the government from pursuing that obvious expedient.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
European Bank Stress Test Politicians Desperate to hide the Truth of Insolvent Banking System / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
The long waited stress test of the 91 of Europe's largest Banks resulted in just 7 of the smaller regional banks failing the test including one from Germany and Greece, and five in Spain, that require capital injections of just Euros 3.5 billion, which is a drop in the ocean when compared against PIGS sovereign debt of Euros 1.2 trillion, but off course the so called stress test FAILED to test for sovereign debt default.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Credit Deflation Lands in Britain / Interest-Rates / Deflation
Credit deflation just hit the UK for the first time on post-war records...
HMMMM...This looks telling.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Mortgage Debt … Credit Card Debt … Corporate Debt — It’s all Shrinking! / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
I used to love those Wendy’s commercials in the 1980s. You know, the ones that mocked the burger patties at competing restaurants with the catchphrase “Where’s the beef?”
Today, I can’t help but ask a similar question about the U.S. economy. Namely: “Where’s the credit?”
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Thursday, July 22, 2010
U.S. Credit Firms Tell Clients Not To Use Their Ratings? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
In an article dated July 12, I first reported that Dagong International Credit Rating Co., the largest credit rating agency of China, stripped the the U.S. and some other western nations of the AAA ratings given by its big three Western counterparts. Dagong also accused its Western rivals of not properly disclosing the repayment risk and causing the global financial crisis and current debt crisis in Europe.
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Thursday, July 22, 2010
Make the Trend Your Friend with Market Bond ETFs / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Recent economic data is pointing toward a second wave of recession … and maybe even outright deflation. One key consequence: Long-term interest rates are low and getting lower.
Today I’m going to tell you about some exchange traded funds (ETFs) that I think can thrive in this short-term, falling-rate environment. First, let’s take a look at some evidence the economy is entering the dreaded “double-dip” part of the cycle …
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
China: The US Is "Insolvent and Faces Bankruptcy" / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The common thought amongst even reasonably educated and economically literate Americans is that China is 'stuck with US Treasuries' and has no choice, so it must perform within the status quo and do as the US wishes, or face a ruinous decline in their reserve holdings of US Treasuries.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Fraud and Debt Monetization / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
A significant feature of fiat money systems is the privilege for the custodian to commit fraud, big fraud, gargantuan fraud, even counterfeit. Fannie Mae might function as the clearinghouse for numerous massive role programs with $trillion fraud behind each, hidden from view, especially since it was conveniently nationalized. Follow some other fraud schemes, right out in the open. Surely such recount only touches the surface, but these shenanigans are advanced forms of fraud. They are smoking guns of USTreasury fraud and counterfeit, with strong whiffs of monetization. Much more monetization is to come, fully endorsed and sanctioned. Other clever techniques are being used, given the Quantitative Easing has officially been halted.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bonds and the Fading Economic Recovery / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Some commentators on the U.S. economy and the European economy are predicting that there will be "quantitative easing" soon. This is a euphemism for central bank inflation.
I have been reporting for months that the present policy of the Federal Reserve System is to deflate the money supply. The chart of the adjusted monetary base since early March indicates this. Similarly, consumer prices have remained flat or close to it this year.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Europe Credit Crisis Stage Two, Internal Bank and Sovereign Debt Crisis Combined / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
The crisis affecting Europe is nothing new. It goes back three years and the beginning of the credit crisis, 60% of the subprime CDOs, collateralized debt obligations, had been sold to European institutions. These were the mortgage bonds, which contained a variety of toxic waste, which the rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, in collusion with banks and brokerage houses, had sold as AAA bonds, when in fact their ratings should have been considerably lower. The holders of these bonds in many instances became insolvent and had to be bailed out by capital injections from central banks, most of the funds were lent by the Federal Reserve.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Emperor Has No Credit / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
As political leaders forsake the few shreds of credibility they have left, at least one observer is willing to state the obvious: If credit is clothing, the emperor goes bare.
As the global financial crisis marches on, the world's leaders face a growing problem: The utter loss of not just credit, but credibility.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Gold Illusory Bubble and the Debt Bubble End Game / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
When the end-game began, gold was $35 per ounce. Today, gold is $1200.
When the end-game is over, gold will be far higher.
Midway through 2010 we are approaching the end of the end-game, the resolution of the monetary imbalances that began in 1971. For more than 2500 years, gold was money: but, in 1971 that changed. After 1971, money was no longer connected to gold. For the first time in history, money had no intrinsic value
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
U.S. Stripped of AAA Credit Rating By China? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Despite repeated warnings going back several years from Moody's, S&P et al that the U.S. could lose its top credit rating with ongoing fiscal deficits and heavy debts, the platinum-plated AAA rating of the United States seems all untouchable.
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Monday, July 12, 2010
China Ratings Agency Downgrades US Debt From Moody's, S&P's, and Fitch's AAA Rating / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Currency wars. Well at least a Phony War for now. See, nothing has happened. All is well. Move along. Nothing to see here. Status quo intact.
The US sovereign debt gets a stiff downgrade, cut down from number one in the world, to a distant thirteenth place by China's Dagong Credit Rating Agency.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bonds Safe Haven Could Sink / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By David Galland, Managing Editor, The Casey Report writes: This morning I read an interesting story in Soundings magazine. It recounted the final voyage of the S.S. Morro Castle, purportedly one of the safest ships afloat back in 1934 when it regularly transported revelers on junkets between New York and Havana. Then, on the night of September 8, a series of unfortunate events occurred that ended with the ship washing up on the New Jersey shore the next day, close to half of its 300 or so passengers dead.
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Friday, July 09, 2010
Europe’s Banking Crisis: Latvia’s Third Option / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
As Europe’s banking crisis deepens, Greece’s and Spain’s fiscal crisis spreads throughout Europe and the US economy stalls, most discussions of how to stabilize national finances assume that only two options are available: “internal devaluation” – shrinking the economy by cutting public spending; or outright devaluation of the currency (for countries that have not yet joined the euro, such as Eastern Europe).
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Thursday, July 08, 2010
State of the European Banking System / Interest-Rates / Euro-Zone
Summary - In the last six months, the eurozone has faced its biggest economic challenge to date — one sparked by the Greek debt crisis which has migrated to the rest of the monetary union. But well before the sovereign debt crisis, Europe was facing a full-blown banking crisis that did not seem any closer to being resolved than when it began in late 2008. With investors and markets focused on European governments' debt problems, the banking issues have largely been ignored. However, the sovereign debt crisis and banking crisis have become intertwined and could feed off each other in the near future.Read full article... Read full article...