Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, September 30, 2013
Ready for QE Five? - It's Already Here / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
The sad truth is that the primary function of the Fed and Treasury has now become the sustention and expansion of disastrous asset bubbles. In fact, while Mr. Bernanke officially acknowledges QEs one through three, the truth is he has embarked on QE V. What's QE five all about? Putting a lid on U.S. Treasury yields.
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Thursday, September 26, 2013
An Explanation of Quantitative Easing: Intention behind US current Monetary Policy / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Sahil Hafeez writes: Quantitative easing (QE)
This is the Federal Reserve's (USA central bank) program of buying bonds from its member banks. The purpose of this expansionary monetary policy (A policy uses to stimulate economy) is to lower interest rates and spur (stimulate) economic growth.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Why did the FOMC continue QE? / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Sahil Hafeez writes: The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) affirmed the results of its September 17-18 gathering. It won't close Quantitative Easing until the economic indicators are closer to the Fed's targets.
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Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Hidden Panic at the U.S. Fed as Flash Trading Hits Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The USTreasury Bond market breakdown is in progress, all part of the general USDollar global rejection that is taking the world by storm. Of course, residents inside the US Dome do not notice, since they only perceive it as the native currency. From conversations with common folk, discussions with investor types, and general observations for over 20 years, the Jackass belief is that only 5% to 10% of Americans are aware that the USDollar serves as a global financial instrument in contracts, the basis for trade settlement (mostly crude oil), with some extremely important consequences. A major development has begun, much like a metabolic life support system in concert with the Interest Rate Swap derivative contract. For two years or more, the USTreasury Bond market has been deeply dependent upon artificial demand derived from the derivatives. Entire bond rallies have been fabricated with 50:1 leverage, fully supported by the financial network propaganda. Without derivative flying buttress support, the giant USTBond Tower would have collapsed a couple of years ago. Now a new support system has been begun, a dangerous musical chairs long entrenched in the stock market. It has entered the bond market finally. Flash Trading!!
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Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Fed Strategy from Mohammed Ali / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Bernanke's actions last week - failing to taper, yet still trying to maintain the illusion that QE is a good thing - are setting up a one-two punch that's not unlike boxing champion Mohammed Ali's famous "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" approach.
If you recall, Ali was a master of the combination - some say the best ever. He loved to bring his opponents in close. Ali could see through the duplicity of his opponents' strategy and land punches that won decisively.
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Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Bernanke Signaled QE is Now a Permanent Government Program / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Last Thursday, prior to the FOMC announcement, I was having an early lunch with Kyle Bass so he could get back to the office in time for the announcement. As we were finishing up, I was invited to come sit with another group of friends and traders who also happened to be in the same restaurant. Everyone was sure there would be some type of tapering. That message had been clearly communicated to the markets. When the announcement came, the telephones went off and everyone erupted with various forms of surprise. I fully admit to being speechless. I kept waiting for some kind of explanation, and none came. The more we talked about it and the more I thought about it later, the more convinced I became that this was one of the more ham-handed policy announcements from the Fed in a very long time. Why would you go to the trouble of getting the market all ready for the onset of tapering, build expectations, and then jerk out the rug? What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on?
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Monday, September 23, 2013
Fed Puts Ceiling on Long-Term Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / UK Interest Rates
The President of the Europe’s central bank said back in July of 2012 that it would fight rising borrowing costs by doing “whatever it takes” to ensure sovereign bond yields do not spiral out of control. This past week Mr. Bernanke took a page from Mario Draghi’s playbook and tacitly indicated that the Fed will now also promise to keep long-term interest rates from rising by any means necessary.
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Monday, September 23, 2013
How Interest Rate Swaps Are Crushing America's Cities / Interest-Rates / Banksters
Garrett Baldwin writes: It's something you may not even have heard of, but the massive financial burden of interest rate swaps is pressuring city budgets and pinching taxpayers more every year.
But before I tell you what interest rate swaps are, let me show you how they've affected life in America's largest city - New York.
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Monday, September 23, 2013
Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme Looks Like a Joke Compared to U.S. Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Michael Lombardi writes: The “Bernie” Madoff name became famous while the stock market was falling during the credit and financial crisis. He was responsible for running one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history—if I recall correctly, it was a $65.0-billion scheme. But as the scam got bigger, Madoff couldn’t go on. He was caught, prosecuted, and sentenced to more than 100 years in jail.
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Sunday, September 22, 2013
The Fed Is Already In the End Game / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
The Fed failed to announce a Taper yesterday of any kind.
It is positively outrageous, but it does inform us of many things.
First and foremost, the Fed has made it clear that it cannot be hawkish is any way. We had just two months of hinting at tapering QE from the Fed (Bernanke was back talking up how accommodating he’d be by July).
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Debt is Still Cheap, and Getting Looser / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Suddenly, borrowing and lending is all the rage again.
The financial crash was five years ago this fall, and nobody is letting us forget it. According to ex-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, financial soundness isn't much improved. She says, "I think our system is still somewhat fragile, a lot more needs to be done."
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
No Taper E-Alchemy with the US Fed / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Imagine the US Fed had a technology called the 'printing press'...
SO LIKE ME, the world and its stockbroker thought the US Fed would start trimming QE money-printing this Wednesday.
US Treasury bonds were down, stocks were soft, and gold and silver were long set for a cut to the money-creation scheme, too.
The Fed seemed determined. Ben Bernanke said as much in June. But no.
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Saturday, September 21, 2013
Fed Small QE Tapering in Ocotber is Possible / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Bloomberg Television's Sara Eisen and Tom Keene sat down with Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President/CEO, James Bullard to discuss the Fed's decision not to taper and said that a 'small taper' in October is possible, that he doesn't want to see brinkmanship on debt, and insisted that the Fed still absolutely targets dual mandate.
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Thursday, September 19, 2013
Faber: On Bernanke Failure to Taper QE / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, stopped by Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart" today and told Trish Regan, Adam Johnson and Matt Miller that Janet Yellen would "make Mr. Bernanke look like a hawk."
Faber also said, "When I look at the market action today, I would like to see the next few days, because it may be a one-day event. The markets are overbought. The Feds have already lost control of the bond market. The question is when will it lose control of the stock market."
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Thursday, September 19, 2013
The QE Taper That Wasn't / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
The Fed's failure today to announce some sort of tapering of its QE program, despite the consensus of an overwhelming percentage of economists who expected action, once again reveals the degree to which mainstream analysts have overestimated the strength of our current economy. The Fed understands, as the market seems not to, that the current "recovery" could not survive without continuation of massive monetary stimulus. Mainstream economists have mistaken the symptoms of the Fed's monetary expansion, most notably rising stock and real estate prices, as signs of real and sustainable growth. But the current asset price bubbles have nothing to do with the real economy. To the contrary, they are setting up for a painful correction that will likely be worse than the one we experienced five years ago.
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Wednesday, September 18, 2013
US Treasury Bonds Corrective Rally Could Forecast / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
I hate to say this again, but major pairs on the FX market place still have a very unclear price action and no direction at all on the intra-day basis. It’s probably “calm before the storm” ahead of highly anticipated FOMC press conference of the last few years, when Bernanke could announce tapering. Statement will be out at 18:00GMT and press conference will be scheduled 30 minutes later. So until then we may not see a lot of price action today.
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Friday, September 13, 2013
Which Way Will the US Federal Reserve Jump? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Adam Green writes: The next 2-day monthly conference meeting of the US Federal Reserve is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, 17th September. Speculation has now been rampant for months about when the Fed will commence tapering its influential stimulus policies and what impact such actions would have on the financial markets. This article sets out to define the most likely possibilities. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Bond Markets Are No Longer Safe Havens From Stock Market Risks / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Bond yields spike to a 2-year high
Two months ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he was puzzled by the upward surge in Treasury yields. And bond yields are even higher now, reaching a two-year high on August 15.
But the rise in bond yields - and the concomitant drop in bond prices since they move inversely to yields - is no surprise to EWI analysts. EWI's June 2012 Special Report on bonds noted: "If rates do begin to rise as we expect, most observers will probably be fooled. Bulls on the economy may take the new trend as a sign of economic expansion."
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Wednesday, September 11, 2013
No Bond Market Vigilantes Or Vultures Need Apply / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
With media and technology becoming faster and more pervasive at a rapid clip, it shouldn't perhaps be a big surprise to see the ease with which war-mongering news flashes come to dominate the story of the day. But maybe this should be received with an increasing dose of skepticism, maybe we should today, even more than before, try to figure out who benefits from one story dominating all major headlines, as if all other things going on are only of secondary importance, especially since new technologies allow those headlines to become so much more pervasive, coming in at an ever faster rhythm, that they are today's true bombardments.
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Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Why the Fed Needs to Taper Now in Spite of Weak Jobs Report / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
George Leong writes: The Federal Reserve will need to make a big decision soon, prior to its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in mid-September, regarding the continuation of its monetary policy. Before Friday’s non-farm payrolls report, the decision was somewhat easy to make on the heels of positive economic data and a good second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) reading. The initial claims for the most recent week were the lowest since before the recession.
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