Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Calls Intensify for Halting Interest Rate Hikes / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: MoneyMetals
President Donald Trump isn’t thrilled about Jerome Powell’s stewardship of the dollar and interest rates. He would like the central bank’s help in keeping the economic party going, but so far the Fed Chair just won’t play ball. Now the Wall Street Journal has joined the President’s call for some renewed stimulus.
If officials at the Fed want to pause or even reverse course on raising interest rates, they have cover to do so. As yet, however, the consensus remains unshaken. The markets are counting on another rate hike following next month’s FOMC meeting.
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Saturday, November 17, 2018
The Fed's Misleading Money Supply Measures / Interest-Rates / Money Supply
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The most robust national income determination model is the monetarist model. The course of the economy when measured in nominal terms is determined by the course taken by the money supply. Indeed, the positive relationship between the growth rate of the money supply and both nominal GDP and nominal aggregate demand growth is unambiguous and overwhelming.
So, just what is the measure of money that is most suited for taking the temperature of the economy and forecasting its course? Is a narrow metric, like the monetary base (M0), the best? Or, should we focus on broad money metrics, like M3 and M4? For national income determination, the more inclusive the metric, the better. Indeed, for the most complete and accurate picture, one should include all the important components of money supply, not just a few.
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Monday, November 12, 2018
Stock Trade-of-the-Week: Equity Commonwealth REIT (EQC) / Interest-Rates / Investing 2018
By: Donald_W_Dony
Company profile: Equity Commonwealth (NYSE: EQC) is a Chicago based, internally managed and self-advised real estate investment trust (REIT) with commercial office properties in the United States. As of June 30, 2018, EQC's portfolio comprised 13 properties and 6.3 million square feet.
Monday, November 12, 2018
A Worldwide Debt Default Is A Real Possibility / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2018
By: John_Mauldin
Is debt good or bad? The answer is “Yes.”
Debt is future spending pulled forward in time. It lets you buy something now for which you otherwise don’t have cash yet.
Whether it’s wise or not depends on what you buy. Debt to educate yourself so you can get a better job may be a good idea. Borrowing money to finance your vacation? Probably not.
The problem is that many people, businesses, and governments borrow because they can. It’s been possible in the last decade only because central banks made it so cheap.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Here’s Why 10%+ US Treasury Bond Yields Are a Real Possibility / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: John_Mauldin
The US Treasury has closed the books on Fiscal Year 2018, which was another debt-financed failure.The federal government spent above $4.1 trillion in FY 2018. It had to borrow $779 billion on budget and a few hundred billion more off-budget.
And over 40% of the on-budget deficit went simply to pay $325 billion in interest on previously-issued debt.
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Thursday, November 08, 2018
Future US Interest Rates, Financial Markets, and the FED / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Raymond_Matison
Don’t fight the FED, is a long-established, oft-confirmed market proverb. The FED is indeed an incredibly powerful institution; in fact, it is perhaps the most powerful institution on the planet. It is arguably more powerful than our combined air, sea, and land military forces. These forces can reduce individual military targets to dust, they can flatten cities or even small countries killing thousands of people, but still it is no competition to the FED! The FED with its power over interest rates and money creation, its expansion or contraction, its Petrodollar and global trading currency, its open market operations, and its foreign currency exchange markets can destroy the value of foreign currencies, and start revolutions. It can injure or even destroy economies of single countries or even whole regions of the developing world, in turn crippling the lives of tens or even hundreds millions of people. It can finance wars, determining who will be victorious.
Wednesday, November 07, 2018
Arguing About Fed Policy Is A Waste of Time / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Kelsey_Williams
When government (or a President) claims that Federal Reserve policy is hurting the economy, they are either grandstanding, or are ignorant about the function and purpose of the Federal Reserve.
No one wants to see the economy suffer, anymore than they want to see a plague, or infectious disease, affect millions of people. And no President wants to be in office to preside over a recession or depression. But neither can they exercise any power or influence regarding the implementation of Fed policy; particularly when it comes to interest rates.
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Monday, October 29, 2018
The Great Interest Rate Caper / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Andy_Sutton
It began as any other bull market. An early burst followed by climbing a wall of worry, then bursting out (or down in this case) beyond the wall of worry, its trajectory headed for the great ethereal unknown. And just like every similar time in history, market analysts, policy makers, and the general public assumed it would go on like this forever. And it did. Until it didn’t. By the title you might have already guessed the topic of this essay but think for a minute about this first paragraph and what we’re discussing in generic terms. Of course! We’re talking about the traits of a financial bubble.
By way of introduction, this essay will not contain any images. We have found that many times graphs and charts confuse the issues rather than helping to elucidate them.
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Monday, October 15, 2018
US Bond market Yields Break 20-year Trends / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Donald_W_Dony
Bond yields have been in decline for a long time. In fact, throughout the last 20 years, the 10 and 20 year US Treasury bonds yields have dropped by almost 80 percent.
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Sunday, October 14, 2018
Here’s Where the Next Financial Crisis Begins / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2018
By: Harry_Dent
The 2008 financial crisis was well overdue, what with predictably slowing demographics, especially in the U.S. at first, and an unprecedented debt bubble in the developed countries.The trigger was the subprime crisis – a small, but high-risk sector of really bad loans that started to blow up when everyday households started to default on mortgages they could never afford in the first place. But that was only the trigger.
Since early 2009, we’ve seen unprecedented money printing to save the banking system and economy from a depression, and most of the new debt has accumulated in the third world. A McKinsey study shows that emerging markets have taken on $57 trillion in additional debt through 2014, with more to follow.
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Sunday, October 14, 2018
Fed is Doing More Than Just Raising Rates / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Rodney_Johnson
Over the past month the 10-year Treasury bond yield has jumped from under 3.00% to 3.23%, sending tremors through the equity markets. By now you’ve heard/read/thought about the usual suspects.As interest rates move higher, equity investors searching for income finally (finally!) have a viable alternative to stocks.
As interest rates move higher, consumers using borrowed funds to purchase homes, cars, and stuff on credit cards will have to pay more, which should curb their economic appetite.
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Thursday, October 11, 2018
Loss Of Yield Curve "Shock Absorber" Could Mean A Rough Ride Ahead For Markets & Housing / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Dan_Amerman
Two important financial cycles are currently converging for the first time in more than ten years, and how they work in combination can provide key information about the future value of our retirement portfolios, the future prices of our homes, and even when the next recession may hit.
A continuing cycle of interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve has pushed Fed Funds rates up 2% from their floor. This same cycle has contributed to rapidly rising long term interest rates, with 10 year Treasury yields rising to 3.22% by the market close on October 5th, 2018.
This sharp surge in interest rates has led not only to falling bond prices, but to tumbling stock prices as well.
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Sunday, October 07, 2018
The Latest Double Standard from the Fed / Interest-Rates / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Rodney_Johnson
Collectively, we just got screwed again, and I bet most people didn’t even know it. It happens so many times, particularly at the hands of the Federal Reserve, it’s hard to keep track.A new bank called The Narrow Bank, or TNB, recently applied for an account with the Fed.
This would give the bank recognition by a local reserve bank, in this case New York, and access to its services, like distribution of currency, check processing and other forms of electronic payments.
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Friday, October 05, 2018
Chinese Credit Collapse Is Imminent / Interest-Rates / China Debt Crisis
By: John_Mauldin
Many good things are happening in China.Businesses are prospering. Living standards rise. The country’s interior is still quite poor but life is improving.
This progress is welcome news. The problem is how China is financing it. The answer is, “with a lot of debt.”
You often hear about China’s government and corporate debt, but less about households.
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Thursday, October 04, 2018
Eurozone Debt Crisis - Italy and the Euro Unplugged / Interest-Rates / Italy
By: Axel_Merk
Why is it that Italy causes such a stir in financial markets when proposing a budget? Is it politics or is the stability of the financial system at stake? In our assessment, the best way to avert a crisis is to allow market forces to play out. Let me explain.
We all “know” Italy is in trouble. Well, before we jump to conclusions, let’s look at a few charts. Above is the Italian unemployment rate; it’s come off a high level, but still elevated. When policy makers call for structural reform, it is a codeword for increasing flexibility in the labor market, i.e. making firing easier. If firing workers is difficult, companies won’t hire workers. It’s also in this context that providing a so-called basic income is criticized by some as providing a disincentive to join the labor force (aside from cementing higher deficits for years to come). Basic income means you get paid, whether you work or not. In practice, the devil is in the details, as European workers have long enjoyed unemployment benefits; streamlining such benefits might actually save the government money. That said, Germany’s low unemployment, to a significant extent, may be due to the fact that welfare benefits were curtailed in 2002 (with a social democrat as chancellor), providing an incentive for workers to join the workforce.
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Thursday, October 04, 2018
US Bond Yields Positioned for Upside Acceleration / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Mike_Paulenoff
Ten-year Yield has climbed to a new post-July 2016 (1.32%) high at 3.17%, the highest yield since July 2011, over 7 years ago!
From a technical perspective, today's surge above May-Oct 2018 resistance at 3.11% is a reaction to very strong recent data showing strong ADP Payrolls for September (230,000 vs. 185,000 expected), and impressive ISM Non-manufacturing data across the Headline data (61.6 vs. 58 expected), as well as the sub-surveys in Business Activity, Prices, Orders and Employment for September.
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Tuesday, October 02, 2018
Global Central Banks Enter the Danger Zone / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Michael_Pento
Investors are experiencing huge moves in commodities, currencies, equities and in sovereign debt across the globe. And now the fall has arrived. Expect the volatility currently witnessed in markets to only surge.
This is because global central banks have overwhelmingly turned hawkish in a vain attempt to gradually let the air out of the massive bubbles they have spent the last decade recreating. Unfortunately, that is not the nature of asset bubbles—they don’t end with a whimper--and they are about to burst in violent fashion.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Whose Trillion is it Anyway? US Federal Government Shocker! / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Andy_Sutton
The headline reads ‘Trump adds a trillion dollars to the national debt in 14 months’. Before you stop reading, give us a minute; this isn’t an article about Trump or politics for that matter. It’s about a process, a series of policies, and an approach that has been in place for decades now, irrespective of political parties. What we are going to give you are facts, not opinions. Those of you who read regularly should know us well enough to understand that we have no use for the ‘lesser of two evils / left-right paradigm’ approach to our Republic. Or what is left of it to be accurate.
Sunday, September 02, 2018
How Much does the UK Really Owe in Debt? / Interest-Rates / UK Debt
By: Dylan_Moran
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Saturday, September 01, 2018
US Interest Rates - A Pound of Cure / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Peter_Schiff
This week, as investors and economists fixate on record highs set by major stock market indices, they have ignored much more significant developments that emerged from the Federal Reserve's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a speech that somehow was almost universally interpreted as a reiteration of his commitment to continue to raise rates throughout the next few years. "Steady as she goes" was the takeaway from just about any news outlet. But the Chairman's actual message was essentially the opposite of what the media reported. From my perspective, it provided evidence that President Trump has succeeded in getting Powell's mind right on the need for the Fed to continue to stimulate the economy, no matter how much evidence emerges that it is already over-stimulated.