Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Are US Treasuries About to Rally… or Crash? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Historically, because the US was the #1 superpower (and the largest economy in the world), Treasuries have generally held to be one of the very few “risk free” investments on the planet. Consequently, Treasuries are where money runs to hide when the rest of the financial world is in trouble.
You can see this in the below chart: as soon as the Financial Crisis began in earnest with the credit market lockup in July 2007, 30-Yr Treasuries broke above 112: a point of historical resistance. This told us two things:
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Bailed Out Banks Continue to Raise Loan Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2009
Since Bank Rate dropped to the historic low level of 0.50% in March, loan rates have continued to increase.
In this period half of all lenders offering personal loans, have upped their rates.
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Confusing Bond Markets / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
The US, UK and European bond markets have all experienced recent double failures at long-term all-time highs. So the long-term technical outlook is bearish. But those failures occurred nearly a year ago. They have fallen since, but from June this year they have lacked any bear impetus at all. Any medium and long-term structures that have developed are far from completion and markets are locked in trading ranges. Traders should stand aside and await events.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009
Affordable Mortgage Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / Mortgages
Neil Kokemuller writes: While most banks aren’t currently offering rates at the historically low levels seen earlier this year, overall, mortgage rates are still very affordable. According to bankrate.com, the national average cost for a 30-year fixed rate loan Wednesday (October 21) is 5.23 per cent, compared to 4.99% one week ago.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
U.S. Interest Rates Set to Rocket with Falling Dollar? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
See our comparison chart between Cash Dollar Index (DXY) and the Proshares Ultrashort 20+ Year T-bond, ETF (NYSE: TBT), in which I am trying to show that right now the vulnerable juxtaposition of the dollar is creating nervousness among bond traders and investors. Once the bond vigilantes get their meat hooks into the bond market, the Fed will have one heck of a challenge on its hands.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
If Bernake Doesn’t Raise The Fed Interest Rate Very Soon There Will Be BIG Trouble / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
The debate about whether it was Alan Greenspan’s “fault” will continue for generations, the “other side” summed up their position nicely in a quip that came up in the debate about whether to let the Fed have more power, “ That’s like buying your teenager a sports car after he wreaked the family saloon”.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPs) Breakout / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
I last mentioned Treasury Inflation Protected Securities or TIPs in an article written on September 10 entitled, "If You Don't Like 'em, Then Don't Trade 'em". In that article, I discussed the fact that there were other places to look for that "fat pitch" besides U.S. equities. If you didn't like the risk in equities, then play in another sandbox.
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Monday, October 19, 2009
Bernanke Gone Berserk! Bank Reserves Explode! Fed Money Printing Gone Wild! / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Martin here with the most shocking new numbers I’ve seen in my lifetime.
My conclusion: Fed Chairman Bernanke has dumped so much funny money into the U.S. banking system and has done so little to manage how that money is used, the fate of our entire economy has now been cast under a dark shadow of doubt.
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Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Fed Does Not Care About the Dollar, Easy Money is Here to Stay / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Every so often, someone decides to pick a fight with me over the Federal Reserve. They say I’ve got it all wrong. They say the Fed is going to prove its mettle. They say that foreign central banks are crying “Uncle” over the dollar, and that this will force the Fed to reverse course and start raising rates.
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Monday, October 12, 2009
CEBR UK Interest Rate Forecasts 0.5% Until 2011, Below 2% until 2014 / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) is forecasting that UK interest rates will stay at 0.5% into 2011 and not reach 2% until 2014.
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Monday, October 12, 2009
Bank of England MPC UK Inflation Forecasting Track Record Analysis / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
Each year, in the August Inflation Report, the Bank of England reviews the accuracy of the inflation forecasts made by the UK Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The reports have become of increased interest, as there has been a suspicion that the policy committee has been unduly conservative about the inflation risks facing the UK economy. If true, this would suggest that over the past decade monetary policy may have been tighter than it should have been given the MPC’s strict inflation remit. By extension, GDP growth may have been commensurately, but unnecessarily, weaker. However, some also argue that the MPC has underestimated inflation. If so, there is a risk that policy has been too loose, potentially leading to higher inflation.
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
On CNBC: Will Japan Drive Our Interest Rates Higher? / Interest-Rates / Japan Economy
I was on CNBC a few days ago discussing the Japan debt situation. Here are my talking points and some additional thoughts – a lot of them I did not have a chance to cover in the previous note or the interview.
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Securitization Boondoggle / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2009
The relentless financialization of the economy has resulted in a hybrid-system of credit expansion which depends on pools of loans sliced-and-diced into tranches and sold into the secondary market to yield-seeking investors. The process is called securitization and it lies at the heart of the current financial crisis. Securitization markets have grown exponentially over the last decade as foreign capital has flooded Wall Street due to the ballooning current account deficit.
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Friday, October 09, 2009
What are the Central Banks Up To? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
At its FOMC meeting last month the Fed said that while it is more confident that the economic recovery is underway, it expects to keep interest rates low for some time to come. Analysts took that to mean until sometime late in 2010.
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Thursday, October 08, 2009
The Fed's Financial Crisis Balance Sheet Exit Strategy Dilemma / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2009
The Federal Reserve (Fed) and other central banks currently face a dilemma. A strong central-bank balance sheet is essential for the quality of a currency and the stability of a financial system. Unfortunately, the financial crisis has seen substantial changes in the balance sheets of the world's major central banks.
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Thursday, October 08, 2009
Bank of England Keeps UK Real Interest Rate at Minus 1.1% / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
The Bank of England as expected has kept the UK base interest rate on hold at 0.5% which translates into a real interest rate of -1.1% adjusted for CPI inflation of 1.6% which continues to seek to punish savers for the crimes of the bankers.
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Friday, October 02, 2009
UK Treasury Bond Market, Surging Gilts Sleep Walking Toward Edge of a Cliff / Interest-Rates / UK Debt
The Gilt has remained well-supported over recent months despite some of the worst public sector borrowing data ever seen, and certainly in peace time. In recent days it has begun to surge -in line with or even better than other bond markets What then, as we have asked before, keeps this market up?
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Thursday, October 01, 2009
U.S. Treasuries TLT on the Move / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
As we discussed with subscribers last evening, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) looked like they were in a high-level consolidation ahead of a thrust to the upside, which is exactly what has transpired so far here today, likely in reaction to disappointing data on initial Jobless Claims ahead of tomorrow’s monthly Employment Report.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Are U.S. Treasuries A Bubble Ready To Pop? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The standard theory is that the price/cost of risk-free long-term debt is a function of (a) the cost of short-term debt plus (b) some function of the market's anticipation of the likely course of inflation or deflation over the term of the debt.
Governments (the Fed) can control short-term rate but they are at the mercy of markets to fix long-term rates. And of course markets are "efficient", unless of course there is a "bubble", when...Err...they are not.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
What the Fed Doesn’t Want You To Know About U.S. Debt / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Fed’s FOMC announcement came out…
We got exactly what I expected, a kind of wishy-washy, “hedging our bets” statement from the Fed. You have to remember that Bernanke was Greenspan’s right hand man for much of the bubble days of the ‘90s and early ‘00s, so the guy is an expert at walking both sides of the line when it comes to policy and public statements.
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