Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Bernanke's $4 Trillion Quantitative Easing Dilemma / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Mike_Whitney
Ben Bernanke is in a real fix. His quantitative easing (QE) program is designed to boost stock prices, lower bond yields, and weaken the dollar.
But the market has already priced all that in, so when he announces the start of the program on November 3, there's a good chance that things will either stay the same or head in the opposite direction. That's bad for Bernanke. Just imagine if the dollar strengthens just as the Fed chairman begins buying-up Treasuries to push the dollar down. He'll look pretty foolish. But that could happen because the dollar has already slipped nearly 7% since August and is overdue for a rebound.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Quantitative Easing (QE2): Who Gets the Fed’s Printed Money? / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Chris_Ciovacco
Part 2 of a 6 Part Video Series on Quantitative Easing: In Part 1: Quantitative Easing Targets Asset Prices, Not Bank Reserves, we discussed how Mr. Bernanke’s quantitative easing program is implemented via the Fed’s eighteen primary dealers, not traditional banks.
We do not know the size of the Fed’s program, nor do we know how the markets will react in the short-term. However, one thing we know with near certainty – a large quantity of newly printed money is going to flow from the Fed to the eighteen primary dealers. We also know a significant amount of the electronic greenbacks will flow from the primary dealers into the accounts of their clients.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 25, 2010
Is the Fed Sorry It Promised QE2? / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Sy_Harding
The Fed has had stocks and gold spiking up since early September, and the dollar plunging, first on hints that it might consider providing another round of ‘quantitative easing’ if the economic recovery continued to worsen, and then practically promising it’s ready to do so.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 23, 2010
So, Who Is Selling U.S. Treasury Bonds? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Sy_Harding
QE2 is coming, and it isn’t stocks the Fed buys in large quantities with its quantitative easing. It buys treasury bonds, in an effort to drive long-term interest rates down, which should drive the price of bonds up.
But the bond market hasn’t been as excited about the idea of all that buying as the stock market has been. In fact, just the opposite. Treasury bonds have been tumbling since late August.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Japan Quantitative Easing – A Curious Conundrum / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: David_Urban
As I mentioned in the Week in Review the move last week by the Bank of Japan to cut interest rates and enact a new quantitative easing program along with the lack of moves by Indonesia and Australia coupled with the immediate rally in equity markets looks increasingly like a coordinated global intervention to push up equity prices to help Japan.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Foreigners Buy $117 Billion of U.S. Treasury Bonds During August / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: OilPrice_Com
Dave Forest writes: The U.S. bond market is murky these days.
Yields have been plummeting. But some of the action is almost certainly due to the Federal Reserve once again buying Treasuries. Since August 19, the Fed has bought $40 billion in government bonds.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
China Interest Rate Hike, Once Is Never Enough / Interest-Rates / China Economy
By: James_Pressler
In a move that caught international markets flatfooted, this morning the People's Bank of China (PBoC) tightened two key interest rates by 25 basis points, its first rate hike since December 2007. Few analysts expected a rate hike any time before Q1 2011, so such a sudden hike - that lacked any accompanying discussion or explanation - triggered a wave of uncertainty as everyone scrambled to explain the move. So, along with the mob, we offer our own interpretation of today's events.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
U.S. Treasury and Junk Bonds, A Casino Royale? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Kieran_Osborne
The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) extraordinarily low interest rate policies have encouraged fixed income investors to take on evermore exposure to credit risks. With the global economic recovery looking more and more unstable with every new piece of economic data released, fixed income investors may be following a strategy akin to gambling at the roulette table. Investors may want to be careful not to let this transpire into a bad vacation in Vegas; we are concerned many investors may find themselves left out of pocket, hung-over with a bad taste in their mouth.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Further Limiting Your Risk with CDs or Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Nilus_Mattive
It’s now official: As I suggested last week, Social Security recipients are not getting any cost-of-living increase in 2011. This marks the second straight year of flat monthly checks.
That fact, combined with the paltry interest rates on many traditional income investments, is certainly causing a lot of people major angst right now.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 18, 2010
What Can We Expect Next from the Bernanke Fed? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: MISES
Roger Garrison writes: On October 15, Ben Bernanke spoke at the Boston Fed's conference, "Monetary Policy in a Low-Inflation Environment." His remarks were long and ponderous and consisted mostly of "Fedspeak" along with seeming excerpts from a typical intermediate-macroeconomics textbook. He rehashed the Fed's statutory mandate of maximum employment and price stability — which comes from the Keynes-inspired Full Employment Act of 1946.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
U.S. Debt Pie, A Nation of 300 Million Suckers / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Seth_Barani
Lets analyze what is happening to the fixed-income instruments, mainly Treasury Bonds. There are two likely scenarios. One is, (scenario #1) Bernanke tries to salvage the economy. The other is (scenario #2), he only cares for US government's ability to service its debt.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Bernanke Ponders The "Nuclear Option" / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Mike_Whitney
Ben Bernanke's speech on Friday in Boston could turn out to be a real barnburner. In fact, there's a good chance the Fed chairman will announce changes in policy that will stun Wall Street and send tremors through Capital Hill. Along with another trillion or so in quantitative easing, Bernanke is likely to appeal to congress for a second round of fiscal stimulus, this time in the form of a two-year suspension of the payroll tax. That's what he figures it will take to jump-start spending and rev-up the flagging economy. It could be the most radical intervention in history; Bernanke's version of “shock and awe”.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Fed Has Gone Insane, So I'll Just Pick Up Some More Gold and Silver / Interest-Rates / Inflation
By: Richard_Daughty
My stomach was hurting, so I decided to take a little time off and soothe the old midsection with a few medicinal brews and a dose of pizza. The reason that my stomach hurt was because I had just read the stupidest economic essay, which was, unbelievably, penned by another lackluster university professor, and surprisingly printed by The Financial Times newspaper.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Will QE2 Go Corporate? / Interest-Rates / Corporate Bonds
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Our friends on the bond markets have put their money where their mouths are with huge positions made in the past few weeks on short term government debt, demonstrating the likeliness that the Federal Reserve will force quantitative easing round two and buy up billions—maybe trillions—of dollars of debt.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 14, 2010
A Plunge into a Monetary No Man’s Land / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Bob_Chapman
The question keeps swirling around regarding the Fed and just how much Treasury paper they can buy from the market under current rules. Our guess is about $1.7 trillion. A good part of that may well be in notes, which will probably keep long dated rates low. On the other hand they may increase the current limit, and buy everything in sight.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
America's Bright Future After U.S. Treasury Debt Default / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Gary_North
It is easy to make a case for east Asia's economic success, but only over the next two decades. East Asia's economies are growing because their economies are being freed by decisions by politicians to reduce government regulations. But they all have two major problems: (1) the extreme boy/girl birth ratio of at least 120 to 100; (2) the threat of a rapidly aging population after 2025 or 2030. Economist Nick Eberstadt has been writing about this for a decade.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Key U.S. Treasury Bond Yields When QE1 Was Put in Place / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Fed announced plans to purchase government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) debt [$100 billion] and mortgage backed securities [$500 billion] on November 25, 2008 and increased the size of these purchases on March 18, 2009 to $200 billion and $1.25 trillion, respectively. Purchase of $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities was also announced on the same day in March 2009.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Investors Inflating the U.S. Treasury Bond Bubble / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Richard_Daughty
Last week, bond prices were so high that a two-year government note yielded a miniscule 0.43%. To get more than one percent interest, you have to accept the five-year Treasury note yield of 1.32%. The ten-year yield? 2.60%. The 30-year long bond? A laughable 3.78%! Hahaha! This is insane!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
$2 Trillion False Flag Event at the U.S. Treasury, The Fed’s Furtive Filching / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Barry_M_Ferguson
$2,000,000,000,000.00 dollars has been stolen from the US Treasury!! What happened? Who did it? Did they get away with it?
The answers: A ‘false flag’ event, the Federal Reserve, and yes.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Bernanke's Declaration of Independence, U.S. Treasury Junk Bond Future / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Gary_North
Ben Bernanke gave a grim speech on October 4. It did not get media attention. That was because it was so grim.
It was on the looming fiscal crisis of the Federal government. There will be no easy way to avoid it, he said. Congress has to decide what spending to cut. This means that Congress must decide which special-interest groups to alienate. Then it must decide which taxes to raise. Whose ox will get gored?
Read full article... Read full article...