Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
The Fed May Show Trump No Love / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Peter_Schiff
Typically, U.S. Presidents are wary of claiming stock market performance as a referendum on their success. Most have seemed to understand that taking credit also means accepting blame, and no one would want to make the tortured argument that the positive moves reflect well on their presidency but that the negative moves do not. But Donald Trump has shown no reluctance to make any argument that suits his political purpose of the day, no matter its absurdity, and no matter if he has to contradict the arguments he made last year, or last week. Perhaps he assumes, as most investors seem to, that the risks are minimal because the Federal Reserve will jump in to save the markets if things turn bad. But in binding his performance so closely to the markets he overlooks the possibility that the Fed will be far less charitable to him than it was to Obama.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
The Student Loan Bubble and Economic Collapse / Interest-Rates / Student Finances
By: Antonius_Aquinas
The inevitable collapse of the student loan “market” and with it the takedown of many higher educational institutions will be one of the happiest and much needed events to look forward to in the coming months/years. Whether the student loan bubble bursts on its own or implodes due to a general economic collapse, does not matter as long as higher education is dealt a death blow and can no longer be a conduit of socialist and egalitarian nonsense for the inculcation of young minds.
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Friday, July 14, 2017
Subprime Auto Loans Up, Car Sales Down: Why This Could Be Good for Gold / Interest-Rates / Auto Sector
By: HAA
The latest monthly motor vehicle sales report released on July 3 paints a grim picture for US car sales. Overall June sales dropped by 3% compared to June of last year—the sixth successive month of lower year-over-year sales.
General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler were among the greatest losers with declines between 4.7% and 7%. Japan’s top sellers fared a little better, with Nissan seeing 2% growth and Toyota a 2.1% gain.
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Sunday, July 09, 2017
Did Junk Bonds Just Signal the End to This Credit Cycle? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Graham_Summers
Stocks are now in very serious trouble.
The S&P 500 has fallen to test its “election rally” trendline. If the market breaks down here, there’s essentially one giant “air pocket” down to 2,200 or so.
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Friday, July 07, 2017
If The Fed’s Members Spent Some Time As Uber Drivers, Our Monetary Policy Would Be Saner / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON : John Mauldin wrote a letter last year called “Life on the Edge” that I think was one of his most important ever. It drew more reader feedback than anything else of John’s I’ve seen.
Drawing on Peggy Noonan’s Protected vs. Unprotected theme, John described how our economy has left so many people behind. Their anger, much of it well-justified, is one reason Donald Trump is now president.
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Thursday, July 06, 2017
Italy Has Ignored ECB Regulations And Bailed Out Its Banks Again / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2017
By: John_Mauldin
By Xander Snyder : The Italian government has bailed out its banks again. Unwittingly, it has shown just how ineffective the European Central Bank is.
Rome recently finalized a deal to save one of the country’s largest and most important commercial banks, Monte dei Paschi di Siena. In another deal, Intesa Sanpaolo, a much more stable bank, will bail out Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza.
Both agreements involve Italian government funds and prevent senior creditors from incurring losses. That skirts the European Union’s strictest banking regulations, which allow Brussels to impose losses on senior bondholders.
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Wednesday, July 05, 2017
Fed Officials Say More Hikes Are on The Way, Markets Disagree / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: MoneyMetals
By Clint Siegner : Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen says she is planning more hikes in the Fed funds rate, but you wouldn’t know it by watching the markets. So far, the response in foreign exchange, bonds, and equities isn’t what people expected.
Markets have always been notorious for behaving unpredictably.
But in an age when central bankers micromanage virtually all markets, the behavior could be the result of careful planning. Maybe the recent market action was only unpredictable for those of us outside of the FOMC conference room.
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Wednesday, July 05, 2017
Will Trump Fire Yellen or Vice Versa / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Michael_Pento
Citigroup’s Economic Surprise Index just hit its lowest level since August 2011. But this level of disappointment has ironically emboldened the Fed to step up its hawkish monetary rhetoric. The truth is that the hard economic data is grossly missing analyst estimates to the downside as the economy inexorably grinds towards recession. This anemic growth and inflation data should have been sufficient to stay the Fed's hand for the rest of this year and cause it to forgo the unwinding of its balance sheet.
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Monday, July 03, 2017
NY Fed President Just Admitted Ignoring The Bond Market… I Have A Theory / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: John_Mauldin
Speaking at a Business Roundtable event, New York Fed President William Dudley reportedly expressed great confidence in both the economy and the Fed’s policy moves.
Dudley is not even slightly concerned about the Fed’s overshooting with its rate hikes. In fact, he is supremely confident that inflation will overshoot if the Fed doesn’t tighten policy.
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Sunday, July 02, 2017
Central Bankers Just Lit the Fuse on a $217 TRILLION Debt Bomb / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2017
By: Graham_Summers
As we noted yesterday, the world’s Central Banks have begun sending signals that the price of money in the financial system (bond yields) is going to be rising.
Why is this a big deal?
Because globally the world has packed on $68 TRILLION in debt since 2007. And ALL of this was issued based on the assumption that bond yields would be remaining at or near record lows.
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Sunday, July 02, 2017
Janet Yellen Just Said The Most Ridiculous Thing We’ve Heard All Year! / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Jeff_Berwick
Of all people, the last person you should ever ask about what is going to happen in the economy is a central banker or a Keynesian economist.
They are, after all, communists trying to centrally plan the economy. Commies are always clueless about economics.
And, their track record of predicting the economic future is almost perfect in that they almost always say “this time things are different” just moments before another crash happens.
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Saturday, July 01, 2017
Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style. The US National Debt / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2017
By: Ellen_Brown
Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation. We could do that too.
Let’s face it. There is no way the US government is ever going to pay back a $20 trillion federal debt. The taxpayers will just continue to pay interest on it, year after year.
A lot of interest.
If the Federal Reserve raises the fed funds rate to 3.5% and sells its federal securities into the market, as it is proposing to do, by 2026 the projected tab will be $830 billion annually. That’s nearly $1 trillion owed by the taxpayers every year, just for interest.
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Thursday, June 29, 2017
The Fed Is Pursuing An After-Me-The-Deluge Monetary Policy / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
I think there is a mixture of political bias and legacy-building that is driving Federal Reserve policy. The simple fact is that the Fed should have been normalizing interest rates starting in 2013.
Fifty basis points a year, and we would be at 2% now. That is not exactly a torrid rate-hike path. It cannot be seen as putting your foot on the brakes. It’s simply moving to normalize a situation that everybody realizes is abnormal.
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Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Here’s Why Robots Should Take the Fed’s Job / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON : The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates again last week.
Higher rates aren’t entirely bad. They might help savers holding cash—though I wonder why anyone would still hold cash after almost a decade of punishment. The Fed has forced Americans into riskier assets, using every tool but horsewhips.
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Tuesday, June 27, 2017
We Are Witnessing the Largest Twin Bubbles in History / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2017
By: John_Mauldin
BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : In the coming years, we will have to deal with the largest twin bubbles in history. It’s global debt (especially government debt) and the even larger bubble of government promises.
Together, these twin bubbles make up what John Mauldin calls “The Great Reset.” Nobody can tell how this crisis will play out, but one thing is for sure, it will affect everyone in a big way.
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Tuesday, June 27, 2017
The Federal Reserve And Drug Addiction – A Prediction / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Kelsey_Williams
The Federal Reserve Bank was established in 1913. Its stated purpose was to control the economic cycles; more specifically to avoid panics and crashes by smoothing out the variances in the stages (prosperity, inflation, recession, depression) of the economic cycle.
The plan centered around control (expansion and contraction) of the money supply and exertion of any influence it could muster regarding direction (up, down, or stable) of interest rates.
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Tuesday, June 27, 2017
US Bonds and Related Market Indicators / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Gary_Tanashian
Excerpted from the June 25 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, which also included comprehensive analysis of US and global stock markets, commodities, precious metals and stock charts galore (with the Market Internals segment, in particular, having evolved into what I find to be a must-have guide).
TLT is now a buck from its target of 129. Tell me, where is all that mania about rising interest rates and the likes of the “R.I.P. Bond Bull Market” headlines (Bloomberg called the bottom almost to the day with that Louise Yamada hype). Now a mature bounce labors on. 129 does not need to stop the move, but it’s a long-standing marker, so…
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Tuesday, June 20, 2017
We’ve Entered A Period Of Maximum Monetary Uncertainty / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON : America is fully employed, or so say the statistics.
Federal Reserve officials think the job market is strong enough to justify higher interest rates. They’re afraid inflation will get out of control.
But if inflation is a problem, it’s not yet apparent in the average worker’s paycheck. “Just wait,” the inflation hawks say.
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Monday, June 19, 2017
US Bonds and Related Market Indicators / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Gary_Tanashian
The June 18 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole has a few less stock charts this week in order to ramp up the macro talk, which appeared periodically through the report; but especially in the Precious Metals and Bonds segments. Excerpted from NFTRH 452…
Bonds & Related Indicators (and more macro discussion)
The target for TLT continues to be around 129. Treasury bonds are in bull trends (remember back a few months ago to all the bond hatred in the media). How does an eventual decline in bonds square with what we just noted above regarding Q4 2008? [work done in the preceding Precious Metals segment] Treasury bonds were a wonderfully bullish asset during Armageddon ’08 and who’s to say that an upside blow off may not be coming sooner rather than later amid massively over bullish sentiment? I mean, there is certainly no stop sign at our 129 target. Sentiment, as we are all too aware, can take a long while to manifest in pricing.
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Saturday, June 17, 2017
Here Comes Quantitative Tightening / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Peter_Schiff
All of a sudden the Fed got a little tougher. Perhaps the success of the hit movie Wonder Woman has inspired Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen to discard her prior timidity to show us how much monetary muscle she can flex when the time comes for action.
Although the Fed's decision this week to raise interest rates by 25 basis points was widely expected, the surprise came in how the medicine was administered. Most observers had expected a "dovish" hike in which a slight tightening would be accompanied by an abundance of caution, exhaustive analysis of downside risks, and assurances that the Fed would think twice before proceeding any farther. But that's not what happened. Instead Yellen adopted what should be viewed as the most hawkish policy stance of her chairmanship.
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