Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Governments Benefit From ‘Teaser’ Interest Rates, Wait ’til They Come to an End… / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
By: Bill_Bonner
There are so many breathtaking things going on around us we practically suffocate. Last week, three-month US Treasury-bills yielded all of 0.015% interest. Some yields were below zero. In effect, investors gave the government money. The government thanked them and promised to give them back less money three months later. How do you explain this strange transaction? Was there a full moon?
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Dubai Debt Default illustrates Financial Crisis Not Over / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Mike_Whitney
The default in Dubai is not the beginning of Financial Meltdown 2. Don't look for dominoes here. Yes, it does raise serious questions about the vast debt-overhang in emerging economies--particularly East Europe. But, this is not a "sovereign default" in the strict sense, nor is there any great risk of contagion.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Greece Tests the Limit of Sovereign Debt As it Grinds Toward Slump / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
By: Trader_Mark
I've been reading quite a bit of handwring over Greece in the UK papers, and came upon this piece from one of my favorite writers, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, early this week. It was in the "to do pile" to put on the website, but I never got around to it. It appears with events in the past 48 hours, there is no time like the present.
Friday, November 27, 2009
New Record Low Two Year Treasuries Yield, Is This Start Of U.S. Dollar Rally? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Mike_Shedlock
In the wake of the Dubai default (please see Dubai Defaults - Deflation In Action - Watched Pot Theory Revisited for details), I am up watching treasury yields.Two year treasury yields plunged to an new all-time record low as the following Bloomberg table shows.
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Thursday, November 26, 2009
Zero Interest Rates, the Cruelest Tax of All / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Sarel_Oberholster
The zero-interest-rate policy of the Fed is sold to the public as a benign economic rescue in the public interest. The stark reality is that this policy is a disguised tax implemented by the Fed. It takes income from savers and hands it as a subsidy to borrowers. It also facilitates and funds the fiscal deficit policies of central government. Such a well disguised tax is a boon for governments. The cruelest tax of all is this 100 percent tax on interest income, disguised and rationalized as "good" policy.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Average Two Year Fixed Mortgage Interest Rate Falls to Lowest Since June / Interest-Rates / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
The average two year fixed has fallen to 4.99%, the first time it has been below 5.00% since 23 June 2009.
A string of rate rises during July saw the average quickly rise, peaking at 5.21% by the end of the month.
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Monday, November 23, 2009
Fundamental Backdrop Remains Supportive of Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Levente_Mady
The bond market crept up toward the middle of the 118 to 124 trading range of recent months as per our advertisement in last week’s issue. 3 month Treasury Bills are back to negative yields again heading into the year end, just like last year. While 3 month Bills are back under 0, the swap market is telling us that sovereign risk is on the increase. Credit Default Swap spreads for most of the largest developed nations (think G7) have widened noticeably over the past few weeks. With the front end literally at 0, it looks like long rates will dictate the shape of the yield curve for the rest of the year.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Unintended Consequences of the Federal Reserve's Low Interest Rate Policy / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
Where the Wild Things Are
It Is Not Just Japan
The Euro-Yen Cross and the Dollar Carry Trade
Where the Wild Things Are is a beloved children's book and now a beautiful movie. But in the investment world there are really scary wild things lurking about in the hidden recesses of the economic landscape. Today we look at one of the unintended consequences of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy.
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
What If the Foreigners Stop Buying Our Debt? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Doug_Horning
By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, Casey Research - “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all.
Many citizens probably still cling to the old saw that public debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” Wrong. Debt always matters. And as for whom we owe it to, it is a lot of kind (or, at least, not yet unkind) strangers.
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Monday, November 16, 2009
The Fed's Policy of Near Zero Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Bob_Chapman
One of the outcomes of Fed policy of near zero interest rates is that seniors cannot live on an income of 1-1/% and that pension funds, insurance companies and endowments cannot fulfill their commitments. As yields eventually rise, although the Fed has signaled that is at least a year away, and if Japan is any guideline, we could be 19 years away from solving the problem of fiduciaries.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Are U.S. Treasury Bond Yields Headed Lower? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Guy_Lerner
I am beginning to see signs that there is a high likelihood of this occurring over the next couple of weeks. Figure 1 is a weekly chart of the Ultra Short Lehman 7-10 Year Treasury (symbol: PST); this is an ETF that corresponds to the inverse of the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 7-10 Year U.S. Treasury index.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Fixed Interest Rate Bonds Shelf Life Hits New Low / Interest-Rates / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Savers looking to take out a fixed rate bond need to act fast after the average bond shelf-life fell to a new low of 23 days last month.
At its peak in March 2006, the average shelf-life of a fixed rate bond was 158 days.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Origins of the Federal Reserve Banking System- Part 3 / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Jacob Schiff Ignites the Drive for a Central Bank
The defeat of the Fowler Bill for broader asset currency and branch banking in 1902, coupled with the failure of Secretary of Treasury Shaw's attempts of 1903–1905 to use the Treasury as a central bank, led the big bankers and their economist allies to adopt a new solution: the frank imposition of a central bank in the United States.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Origins of the Federal Reserve Banking System-Part 2 / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Charles A. Conant: Surplus Capital and Economic Imperialism
The years shortly before and after 1900 proved to be the beginnings of the drive toward the establishment of a Federal Reserve System. It was also the origin of the gold-exchange standard, the fateful system imposed upon the world by the British in the 1920s and by the United States after World War II at Bretton Woods. Even more than the case of a gold standard with a central bank, the gold-exchange standard establishes a system, in the name of gold, which in reality manages to install coordinated, international, inflationary, paper money.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Origins of the Federal Reserve Banking System / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
The Progressive Movement
The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, was part and parcel of the wave of Progressive legislation on local, state, and federal levels of government that began about 1900. Progressivism was a bipartisan movement that, in the course of the first two decades of the 20th century, transformed the American economy and society from one of roughly laissez-faire to one of centralized statism.
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Friday, November 13, 2009
The Sterling Interest Rate Yield Curve Steep and Steepening / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
By: Seven_Days_Ahead
The Technical Trader’s view:
Friday, November 13, 2009
Buying Government Bonds is a Mugs Game / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
Suppose that I am thinking about buying a bond and its yield is 3.5 percent. This is a nominal yield before taxes and before accounting for price inflation. To estimate my real return, I need to estimate future price inflation. If, for example, I think that price inflation is going to be 3.0 percent, then I expect my before-tax yield will be only about 0.5 percent.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Governments in a Hurry to Borrow Cash to Re-Finance Debt / Interest-Rates / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Adrian_Ash
"With 30-year bond yields still lower than they were before last winter's wipe-out, there's an urgency about refinancing debt as 2010 draws near..."
IT'S NOT JUST the US Treasury that needs to borrow more, for longer, over the next few months and years.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Monetary Policy Outlook / Interest-Rates / Global Economy
By: RGE_Monitor
Deleted.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Municipal Bonds A Dangerous Investment For 2009 / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Andrew_Abraham
Many times just using logic an investor can steer away from problems. It seemed forever municipal bonds were considered one of the safest investments. One did not get rich by investing in municipal bonds however they were consistent and the default possibility was almost not a possibility. Fast forward to 2009 municipal bonds have to be one of the scariest investment choices. All one has to do is to look at State by State finances to be aware.
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