Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, October 09, 2010
The Golden-Real Estate Project / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Japan has taken an interesting approach to preventing people from accumulating so much debt that they default; The Wall Street Journal reports that Japan has a new law "restricting total loans from all lenders to one-third of a borrower's income." Hmmm! Criminal penalties for accumulating too much debt? Wow!
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Friday, October 08, 2010
The Fed’s Big Money Printing Tease Continues! / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
The Fed is not saying whether it will or won’t.After its worst August in years the stock market has rallied back strongly in spite of growing indications that the economic recovery has stalled and is now slowing at a disturbing pace. The catalyst has been the market’s expectation that the Federal Reserve will initiate a second round of policy ‘easing’ that will re-stimulate the recovery.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
The Incredible Two-Day $144 Billion Jump in US Treasury Debt / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Things are getting so, so, so weird that I was locked inside the Mogambo Bunker Of Panic (MBOP), looking through the periscope to keep a vigilant watch for the social explosion outside that was coming, I figured, so, so soon, with my finger on the trigger of something fully loaded and reassuringly .45 caliber, and a slice of yummy pizza in my one free hand to keep my energy level up via the universal Magic Of The Pepperoni (MOTP).
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Friday, October 08, 2010
As QE2 Money Printing Looms, Is the Fed Focusing on the Wrong Things? / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Martin Hutchinson writes: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is looking forward to 1932.
That's not a misprint. Actually, Bernanke is looking forward to a point when the challenges facing today's U.S. economy mirror the problems of that particular Great Depression-era year. And he wants that to happen for a very simple reason.
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Friday, October 08, 2010
Fed QE2 Rhetoric Tied to Mandate of Full Employment and Inflation Stability / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Financial markets are largely convinced the Fed will embark on QE2 at the November 2-3 FOMC meeting. Bernanke's speech on August 27 was the trigger, followed by the FOMC policy statement on September 21 and recent rhetoric of Fed officials Dudley, Evans, and Rosengren. The dollar has lost significant ground vis-à-vis its major trading partners and others (see chart 1) in a short span to time.
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Debt Alarm, Financial Toxic Waste Continues to Unravel, Loan Assets Created Out of Thin Air / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
DEBTCON-1 (as in DEFCON-1, the highest level of the alarm system for impending military threats/crisis) have been triggered, but the FED, global central banks and regulatory authorities are still in deep denial and treat the ongoing global financial crisis as still in the state of DEBTCON-5 (i.e. DEFCON-5, the lowest threat alert).
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Japan, U.S. Prepare For More Money Printing / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Stalling economies around the globe have prompted central bankers to increase their asset purchase or quantitative easing programs. As central banks print money to purchase assets, they increase the amount of paper dollars in the economy, which is often referred to as “inflating the money supply” or “debasing a currency”. We will continue to look for good entry points to add to our gold positions in numerous client accounts. Our current holdings in copper, silver, oil, and gold can help us protect our purchasing power should central banks be successful in their attempts to create positive inflation via currency debasement.
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Bank Credit: Securities vs. Loans - Guidance about Lags from History / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
The role of bank credit in economic recoveries was the theme of the August U.S. Economic and Interest Rate Outlook (Bank Credit: One Month Does Not Make a Trend, But..). The main conclusion of the commentary: A lack of growth in bank credit is the major culprit behind the lackluster recovery. Chart 1, a repeat from the August commentary, illustrates the close link between bank credit and economic growth.
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Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Bank of Japan Goes "All In" To Stem Deflation / Interest-Rates / Japanese Interest Rates
In an attempt to fight off worsening deflation and prevent the economy from falling into another recession, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced its largest foray yet into the realm of quantitative easing (QE). It lowered its benchmark interest rate to between zero and 0.1% (effectively 0%), set up a ¥5 trillion ($59.7 billion) fund to purchase government and corporate bonds, and also created a ¥30 trillion lending facility using those assets as collateral. The breadth of such QE measures caught the market off-guard and dispelled most concerns about the BoJ being too timid in the face of another economic downturn. And yet, even though the BoJ seems to be placing its largest wager ever on the table, we cannot help but ask: Is it enough?
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Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Bank Excess Reserves Have to Decline for Fed Policy to be Successful / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
The nature of recent Fed rhetoric has raised the probability of a second round of quantitative easing (QE) as early as the November 2-3 FOMC meeting. New York Fed President Dudley's speech on October 1 makes a case for this action. Irrespective of Fed action on November 3, excess reserves of the banking system have to decline noticeably for self-sustained robust economic growth to occur. Excess reserves of the banking system, stood at $976 billion for the week ended September 22 and are down from a high of 1.192 trillion (see chart 1) in February 2010. Ideally, excess reserves have to be a negligible entity.
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Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Fed Crossing the Line? / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
William Poole writes: New York Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) president Bill Dudley’s speech Friday attracted much press attention, as it should have. His speech is correctly read, as in the press commentary, as providing a broad hint of more policy easing to come. During my tenure as president of the St. Louis Fed, I overlapped with Dudley, who, along with being president of the New York Fed, is Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). I know him to be a competent and cautious policymaker. It is hard for me to believe that he would not have cleared this speech with Chairman Bernanke before presenting.
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Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Why Certificates of Deposit (CD's) are More Attractive than U.S. Treasury Bonds Today / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Last week I told you why many mutual fund investors could be setting themselves up for serious losses in Treasury bonds.
Just to recap — the idea was that mutual funds often buy and sell before their bonds reach maturity, which can translate to big losses for fund holders if interest rates rise. And the upshot was that, if you wanted to truly guarantee against any type of loss, you would have to hold individual bonds to maturity.
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Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Still Bullish on Bonds, Don't Buy the Stock Market Yet / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
As readers know, I was in Europe a few weeks ago, making a LOT of presentations. My London-based partners seem to feel that an hour or two of down time is wasted and only for sissies. I learn as much as I impart, and come away with lots of interesting information. Every now and then I learn something that gets into the category of what in the wide, wide world of (multiple expletives deleted) economics is going on? Subprime was like that when I first read about it. Could you really design CDOs that were so patently absurd and then sell them to the Europeans and Asians? Turns out you could.
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Sunday, October 03, 2010
Crisis of US Monetary Policy, Quantitative Easing Doesn't Work / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Ed Yardley notes: Two economists, Seth B. Carpenter and Selva Demiralp, recently posted a discussion paper on the Federal Reserve Board's website, titled "Money, Reserves, and the Transmission of Monetary Policy: Does the Money Multiplier Exist?" [Here's the link.]
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Sunday, October 03, 2010
The Bernanke Treasury Bond Market Put / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
According to Market Edge: “After four weeks of impressive gains, stocks took a breather last week as both the DJIA and the NASDAQ ended the period with minor losses. The DJIA started the week with a 48.22 point (-0.4%) loss which was just the fifth losing session in September. Traders bought the dips throughout the week as the DJIA saw triple digit intra-day swings on both Tuesday and Thursday. Despite several disappointing economic reports, traders kept a bullish outlook throughout the week. For the period, the Dow lost 30 points (-0.3%) to close at 10829, snapping its four week win streak.&r
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Saturday, October 02, 2010
QE2 Money Printing, Why This Time Is Different / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Since the Fed’s most recent meeting, everyone seems to have an opinion about another round of extraordinary monetary stimulus and the economic and market reactions such a move could leave in its wake.
Many believe “this time is different” … words that tend to have a very poor track record of coming true.
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Saturday, October 02, 2010
Irish Financial Crisis Worsens, Peter Sutherland and Ireland’s Sovereign Wealth Fund / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2010
Last week, on “black Thursday” the Irish government in essence finally nationalized Allied Irish Bank. In response to the horrific national financial picture painted by Mr. Brian Lenihan, Ireland’s finance minister, Peter Sutherland, former Irish attorney general, hit the media road. Mr. Sutherland’s mantra was similar to that previously presented by his acolyte Mr. Honohan (head of the Irish Central Bank). This mantra stated that though the figures were lamentable they were “manageable.”
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Friday, October 01, 2010
Regime Uncertainty and Treasury Bond Yields / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Regime uncertainty has gained increasing recognition as the current economic troubles have persisted with little or no improvement since the economy reached a cyclical trough early in 2009. As described in my 1997 paper, regime uncertainty pertains to the likelihood that investors' private property rights in their capital and the income it yields will be attenuated further by government action.
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Friday, October 01, 2010
World Sovereign Debt Map / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Debt creates problems. It is seldom known to solve problems, especially in the long run. Countries with high debt are vulnerable to currency weakening as debt drives assets out of those countries towards low risk, high yielding countries.
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Thursday, September 30, 2010
How Bar Chart Patterns Signal High-probability Trade Setups / Interest-Rates / Learn to Trade
There's a little known joke among the trading community that goes like this: "A trader walks into a bar... pattern: 'Ouch!' "
Fact is, if you don't know what you're doing, price bar analysis can be a bit "painful." Finding a discernable pattern in their grouping can feel like finding a hair in a hay stack.
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