Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Sunday, June 28, 2009
What PIMCO's Bill Gross Doesn’t Want You to Know (Part 2) / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
I hope you now understand how mutual funds work. They play the same shell games as the credit card industry. No matter which share class you buy, you are going to pay huge fees. And most investors who haven’t read this piece will never realize that.
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Saturday, June 27, 2009
What PIMCO's Bill Gross Doesn’t Want You to Know (Part 1) / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
I’ve sat by now for about ten years now, waiting for someone from the financial industry to point out what I am about to reveal. I meant to write about this but I kept forgetting.
I have to conclude that no one has written or spoken in the media about what I’m about to reveal because many simply are unaware of what I deem to be obvious. Others don’t want to go against their colleagues in the financial industry. But what these guys seem to forget is that their first loyalty should lie with the investment public.
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Saturday, June 27, 2009
A Case For U.S. Treasury Bonds! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
There’s an old saying that goes like this; “The market will do whatever it must to fool the majority of investors”. It’s another way of describing investor sentiment, which is known as a ‘contrary indicator’ (because the majority of investors are extremely bullish at important market tops, and extremely bearish at important bottoms).
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
U.S. Treasury Bond TLT ETF Continues to Climb / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) continue to act well, suggesting equity traders might be getting increasingly afraid of something... and need to buy some safety. Although existing home sales are showing some sign of life now, Mr. (Bond) Market does not seem to care. The TLTs continue to climb off of last Friday’s pullback low at 90.11 and appear headed for a confrontation with the Dec ’08-present resistance line, now at 94.20. A close above 94.20 will be a very bullish technical event near-term and will project the TLT to 96.60 next.
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Monday, June 22, 2009
Bearish Trader Sentiment Bullish for Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market started the week with a decent tone but it pulled back on Thursday as the Treasury announced the details of next week’s bond auctions. In spite of the pull-back, the Long bond managed to eke out a small gain for the second week in a row. Real rates in the long end remain on an increasing trend as CPI declined from -.7 to -1.3% year over year through May causing the real long bond yield to close in on 6%.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Geithner's Plan Just Doesn't Get It: Securitisation Is The Solution - Not The Problem / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Securitisation has a bad name these days, and that's Official; President Obama says it was a big part of the problem. And he's absolutely right; it was THE problem.
What happened was a bunch of shysters on Wall Street cooked up a load of dud securities and sold them all over the world, and then a bunch of morons wrote naked insurance on them and now they can't pay out on the claims.
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Friday, June 19, 2009
UK Gilt Bond Market Looks Vulnerable At These Better Levels / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
The Technical Trader’s view:
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Friday, June 19, 2009
The Federal Reserve System's Party Line / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
I monitor statements by senior officials of the Federal Reserve System. There are supposedly "hawks" among the regional Federal Reserve banks – privately owned banks. These "hawks" oppose the "doves." The "doves" are always ready to inflate. The "hawks" are always ready to remind the "doves" that inflation may be a problem one of these days, but not yet. Then the "hawks" vote with the "doves" to expand the monetary base.
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
UK Fixed Rate Mortgages Interest Rate Increases / Interest-Rates / Mortgages
Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, said: "There has been a flurry of activity in the mortgage market, but unfortunately mostly to the detriment of borrowers.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, June 15, 2009
How to Profit From Front-Running the Government Bond Auctions / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Tom Dyson writes: Front-running is illegal.Here's how it works: A crooked broker receives a large order from a customer. Before he executes the customer's order, he'll buy the stock in his own account. The customer's order pushes the price of the stock up and gives him an easy profit.
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Monday, June 15, 2009
The Secular Trend Change in U.S. Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
I am on record stating that yields on the 10 year Treasury bond will move higher over the next 12 months, and this will represent a secular trend change.
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Monday, June 15, 2009
Fixed Rate Mortgage Interest Rates About to Rise / Interest-Rates / Mortgages
- Rising swap rates may herald a new wave of costlier fixed rate mortgage deals
- Two years of decreasing fixed rates have to come to an end
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Interest Rate Hikes Coming as Investors Return to Risky Assets / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Bloomberg: Pimco says “rate hikes will be some time in coming” “Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, said the economic outlook ‘looks bad’ for most of the world and central banks will refrain from raising interest rates.
“‘Rate hikes will be some time in coming,’ Andrew Balls, a managing director for the company in London, wrote in a report on the company’s web site.
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Saturday, June 13, 2009
Ben Bernanke's Next Parlor Trick on U.S. Debt Financing / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Ben Bernanke is getting ready to pull another rabbit out of his hat and he's hoping no one figures out what he's up to. Here's the scoop; the Fed chief needs to "borrow up to $3.25 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30" (Bloomberg) without triggering a run on the dollar. But, how? If the stock market keeps surging, investors will turn their backs on low-yielding US Treasuries and move into riskier securities hoping for better returns. The only way to attract more buyers to US debt is by raising interest rates which will kill the "green shoots" of recovery and make it harder for people to buy homes and cars. It's a conundrum.
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Saturday, June 13, 2009
U.S. Fed in Trouble as Falling Dollar Risks Bond Investors Revolt / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Frank Shostak writes: A growing concern for Fed policy makers is a weakening in the US dollar against major currencies. The price of the euro in US-dollar terms climbed from a low of $1.27 in November last year to around $1.41 in May and $1.43 in early June – an increase of 12.6% from November. The major currencies dollar index fell to 78.89 in May from 82.3 in April – a fall of 4.1%. If the declining trend in the US dollar were to consolidate, this could cause foreign holders of US-dollar assets to divest into non-dollar-denominated assets and precious metals. This in turn could spark another financial crisis.
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Saturday, June 13, 2009
Bond Yields Soaring is Not Always an Inflationary Event / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
Bond yields soaring is not always an inflationary event. The traditional teaching is that rising bond yields indicate economic recovery and/or inflation. This is true until it isn't. The problem is that the best parallel for when it ain't true is what's happening right now. Damn, this investing stuff gets complicated when you look through actual history.
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Friday, June 12, 2009
Technical Rally in Treasury Bonds TLT ETF / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) continues to climb off of yest.'s new low of 87.45 (that occurred ahead of the 30 year auction results), which has triggered buy signals in my work (above 89.30/40) for upside continuation to 92.00 next. Has anything changed that has all of a sudden made longer term Treasury bonds more attractive FUNDAMENTALLY? For the time being, the upmove is mostly considered a sling-shot from a very oversold condition.
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Friday, June 12, 2009
Is Short Sterling Topping Out? / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
The Technical Trader’s view:
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Thursday, June 11, 2009
U.S. Treasury Bonds Volatility and Interest Rate Swaps / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The rising long-term USTreasury Bond yield continues to capture attention. The breakout chart for the 10-year Treasury shot up to 3.75% last week, but zoomed to touch 4.0% this week. Less attention has been directed at the short-term USTreasury Bill yields. What was a reasonably steady 2-year TBill yield in the 0.80% to 1.0% range has made a big move to 1.35% suddenly. Few have noticed, since mortgage rates are tied to the 10-year USTreasury. Much talk came in the last few weeks that China was rebalancing its USTreasury hoard, selling some long-term maturity bonds and buying shorter-term maturity bills. The rise in bond yields has actually been attributed to a USEconomic recovery, but that is absurd on its face, with a dozen statistics to debunk it. This China story was intended to mask the real events, to blame them in part for the US bond instability, and to divert attention away from a potentially important threat. Not only has the housing market stalled, with new mortgages and refinanced loans hitting a brick wall.
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Thursday, June 11, 2009
Profit from Rising Interest Rates with ETFs / Interest-Rates / Exchange Traded Funds
Ron Rowland writes: Have you looked at interest rates lately? They’re soaring! Back on March 18, the 10-year Treasury bond yield dropped as low as 2.54 percent. This week it went above 3.90 — a huge move in less than three months. The same thing is happening in all but the very shortest maturities.
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