Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, April 28, 2016
Monetary Policies Misunderstood / Interest-Rates / Money Supply
Ever since the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) began to consider raising the federal funds rate, which it eventually did in December 2015, a cottage industry has grown up around taper talk. Will the Fed raise rates, or won’t it? Each time a consensus congeals around the answer to that question, all the world’s markets either soar or dive.This obsession with taper talk – the interest rate story – is simple, but strange. Indeed, it is misguided – wrongheaded. So, why the obsession? It is, in part, the result of a Keynesian hangover. The Keynesians focus on interest rates. The mainstream macro model that is widely in use today is referred to as a “New Keynesian” model. The thrust of monetary policy in this model is entirely captured by changes in current and expected interest rates (the price of money). Money is nowhere to be found, however.
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Wednesday, April 27, 2016
BlackRock’s Fink: Fed to Raise Interest Rates by Quarter Point ‘at Best’ / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO at BlackRock, spoke with Erik Schatzker on 'Bloomberg <GO>' this morning.
Fink said governments need to embark on fiscal stimulus to boost the economy: "If we continue to have what I would call a dependency on monetary policy worldwide, I think it is very grim. We are harming savers worldwide with low and negative interest rates." He said monetary policy has "run out of runway" and called the Bank of Japan's negative rate policy an "outright mistake."
He said the Fed will raise interest rates "at best" by another quarter point this year because of weak corporate earnings and uncertainty about the global economy: "I would probably lean more towards a 25 basis point increase. Let's see what happens with the Spanish elections in June, the Brexit elections in June, how the U.S. economy performs in the second quarter. And importantly, what is the consumer's mood into the primaries and after the primaries?"
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Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Fed Induced Bond Bubble Will Devastate Financial System - Video / Interest-Rates / Liquidity Bubble
Transcript Excerpt:Hi it's a Tuesday April 26 2016 I'm gonna be talking about a subject a
little bit technical but I think people need to know about this and it's to do
with central banks and you know what the bond markets so in my opinion central
banks they planted or clean been planting the seeds of a bond market
meltdown with the zero interest rate policy and the negative interest rate
policy and by the bond markets I mean government bond markets which are
supposedly risk-free assets are not of course and then corporate bonds you know
all kinds of ratings you know junk bonds but our focus on the bond market
government bond market because that's the biggest market in the world so the
policy observed with zero interest rates implemented through quantitative easing
and officially set raids has resulted in the bond market but never seen before in
the history of financial markets basically the only way to get interest
rates were is to buy bonds because the ruling bond bond prices and yields is
that the bond price goes up goes down if the deal goes up ...
Monday, April 25, 2016
US Bonds Nearing Their All-time High / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
USB futures are lingering at their lows from Friday. The Cycles Model suggests a Trading cycle low may be made at any time in the next 72 hours. What may follow is a ramp to the average target of the Bullish Flag formation.
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Monday, April 25, 2016
US Debt Hotel California or the Hotel Marriner Eccles / Interest-Rates / US Debt
In 1977 the Eagles spoke to us about “Hotel California.” Lyrics are here.
A few lines from the song …
“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…
Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light…
Then I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell…
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Wednesday, April 20, 2016
End Of The Petrodollar: Saudi Arabia Threatens To Dump $700b In Treasuries If Blamed For 9/11 / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Every day a new major piece of news comes out showing a system that is on the verge of collapse… and a planned shift to a new global order. In the last two weeks alone, all of this has occurred:
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Monday, April 18, 2016
Loan Rates on the Rise for the First Time this Year / Interest-Rates / Debt & Loans
Personal loans have become increasingly competitive over the last few years with considerable rate cuts resulting in some of the lowest rates ever seen. However, it now appears that some providers can no longer sustain such low prices, so rates are once again on the rise.
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Monday, April 18, 2016
Helicopter Money to the Rescue / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Following the unconventional monetary policy of negative interest rates, central banks are now considering an even more desperate measure: “helicopter money.” Milton Friedman is credited with this idea:
Read full article... Read full article...Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community. Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Janet Yellen Meets With Obama In Emergency Meetings As Crises Erupt Worldwide / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2016
The Credit Suisse Fear Barometer just hit an all-time high as reports circulated through the alternative media that Barack Obama discussed the imposition of martial law when he and Vice President Joe Biden met with Yellen on Monday in an “emergency meeting.”
The reports may be exaggerated but not the crisis-like feel of the meetings. This was reportedly a first: having the president and VP meeting directly with the Fed head. Does it have something to do with the “survival of the government” at a time when the US banking system may be facing a general default? According to some reports: “Members of the House and Senate are said to have been ‘up all night’ in discussions and meetings; with floods of phone calls back and forth. ”
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Panama Papers and the War on Savings, Bail-Ins, Push to Go Cashless / Interest-Rates / War on Cash
Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the "limited hangout" of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds.
The bombshell publication of the "Panama Papers," leaked from a Panama law firm specializing in shell companies, has triggered both outrage and skepticism. In an April 3 article titled "Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak," UK blogger Craig Murray writes that the whistleblower no doubt had good intentions; but he made the mistake of leaking his 11.5 million documents to the corporate-controlled Western media, which released only those few documents incriminating opponents of Western financial interests. Murray writes:
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016
One Chart Reveals Fed's True Intent; Wreck Havoc on The Middle Class / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
"Crises refine life. In them, you discover what you are." ~ Allan K. Chalmers
What strikes one immediately is that the Fed has been creating money hand over fist; one hand they create money, with the other hand they buy assets and put it on their books, all looks well until you realize this is something called monetization of debt. Paper buying more paper and in most nations this leads to hyperinflation and a currency collapse. However as the Dollar is the world reserve currency. The Fed can magically create money out of thin air and use this newly created money to pay bills and or prop up markets as is currently the case.
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Monday, April 11, 2016
Subprime Debt Makes a Comeback; Auto Loan Crisis is Here / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2016
"A great calamity is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
Greed and recklessness continue to govern the markets; nothing was learned from the 2008 financial crisis. Hence, history is destined to repeat itself, and this might occur a lot faster than most anticipate. Fitch states that Subprime Auto bond delinquencies are at a 20 year high.
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Thursday, April 07, 2016
Bullard - Fed Reserves the Right to Change U.S. Interest Rate Policy at Any Time / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard spoke with Bloomberg Radio's Kathleen Hays today on Bloomberg Radio & Television. While Bullard said he "didn't want to prejudge" whether the committee could act in April, the St. Louis Fed official said last month's employment report showed "continuing improvement" in the labor market.
Bullard said the Fed reserves the right to change policy at any time: "Not only have we moved at all kinds of different meetings, we've actually had inter-meeting meetings, special meetings, and moved at those meetings. So you can do a lot of things. You know, I'm not saying we're I'm planning on that or anything, but the Committee certainly reserves the right to make a move at any time... We debate at all meetings. I think all meetings are live meetings. There's no other way to think about it."
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Saturday, April 02, 2016
Wall Street is Coo-Coo for CoCo Bonds - Learn why these new bonds are such risky instruments / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
The co-editor of our monthly Elliott Wave Financial Forecast newsletter tells you about the emergence of the so-called CoCo bonds, one of the hottest new derivative-backed instruments on Wall Street.
Listen as Peter explains what differentiates them from regular bonds -- and why they're so risky to own.
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Friday, April 01, 2016
Fed Watchers April Fools in March / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
It may be almost impossible to underestimate the gullibility of professional Fed watchers. At least Lucy van Pelt needed to place an actual football on the ground to fool poor Charlie Brown. But in today's high stakes game of Federal Reserve mind reading, the Fed doesn't even have to make a halfway convincing bluff to make the markets look foolish.
Just two weeks ago, the release of the Fed's March policy statement and the subsequent press conference by Chairwoman Janet Yellen should have made it abundantly clear that the Central Bank policy had retreated substantially from the territory it had previously staked out for itself. In December it had anticipated four rate hikes in 2016, but suddenly those had been pared down to two. Based on the conclusion that the era of easy money had been extended for at least a few more innings, the dollar sold off and stocks and commodities rallied.
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Friday, April 01, 2016
A Visual Look At The Fed Decision From A Retirement Investor's Perspective / Interest-Rates / Pensions & Retirement
Below is the transcript for the video. While the images are included below, the motion graphics and use of a pointer are quite helpful for conveying the information, and these can only be seen by watching the video.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Fed Will Be Forced to Lower Interest Rates and Declare War on Cash / Interest-Rates / War on Cash
"No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness." ~ Aristotle
The simple and easy to understand chart shown below quite clearly illustrates why the Fed has no option but to lower interest rates. Central bankers worldwide have already embraced negative rates, so it is just a matter of time before our central bankers are forced to walk down the same path. The Fed is trying to put on a brave act, but you can already see them backtracking from the strong stance they took last year. Now they are stating that all is not well, and the economic outlook is weaker than expected. Rubbish we already stated in several articles that they would take this path and that the only reason they even raised interest rates was so that they could come out with an excuse to lower them again.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016
New Zealand’s Surprise Interest Rate Cut Highlights Concern Of A Global Currency War / Interest-Rates / Currency War
On Wednesday March 9th the Reserve Bank of New Zealand announced a surprise cut in New Zealand’s benchmark interest rate by 25bps to 2.25%. That is the fifth rate cut by the RBNZ since June in the hope to spur economic growth and to boost exports by weakening the New Zealand dollar. This is a historic low for New Zealand’s interest rate.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Federal Reserve's Policy Forecasts Two Down - Two to Go / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
The Federal Reserve's years-long campaign to sheepishly back away from its own policy forecasts continued in earnest last week when it officially reduced the four expected 2016 quarter point hikes, suggested back in December, to just two. Given the deteriorating economic outlook, I believe there can be little doubt that the Fed will soon complete the capitulation process and remove all expectations for additional hikes this year. Even before that happens, savvy observers should have already concluded that the Federal Reserve is stuck in the monetary mud just as firmly now as it has been since the dawn of the financial crisis back in 2008.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Yellen, Draghi, Kuroda: Deranged Lab Rats / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
The stock market has regained all of its loses year to date as economic indicators continue to flash red, corporate profits continue to plunge, consumers continue to spend less at retailers, real wages continue to fall, and housing sales continue to decline. The entire dead cat bounce has been generated through corporate stock buybacks, Wall Street lemmings trying to make up for their terrible year to date investing performance, and central bankers who will stop at nothing to verbally manipulate markets higher - since their monetary machinations over the last seven years have been a miserable failure in reviving the real economy.
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