Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Why A Fed President Just Suggested Doubling QE3 / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans was interviewed on CNBC on Monday, and he indicated that he was in favor of continuing asset purchases at a rate of $85 billion per month all the way through 2013. If approved by the rest of the Fed, this would have the effect of about doubling the size of "QE3", or Quantitative Easing Three, the massive Federal Reserve monetary creation and market intervention program announced only three weeks ago.
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Monday, October 01, 2012
Spain's Banks Need Another 60 Billion Euro Bailout / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Why read: Because late Friday afternoon after the European markets closed the results of Spain's bank audit was publicly released. It is reminiscent in some respects of the U.S. Bank Stress Test report issued earlier this year by the Federal Reserve, and you should know something about the assumptions upon which the report is based.
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Monday, October 01, 2012
Euro-zone Breakup, What if I am Wrong? / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
I have long stated the eurozone will breakup. Historically speaking, no currency union has ever survived in the absence of a political union.
Moreover, in It's Just Impossible I noted
- The Bundesbank said there should be no banking union until there is a fiscal union.
- Angela Merkel said that there should be no fiscal union until there is political union.
- François Hollande said that there should be no political union until there is a banking union.
- The German supreme court will not allow a political union nor a fiscal union, nor a banking union without a German referendum.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Nothing Will Change Until the Great Debt Default, Will you be Prepared? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
The Wall Street Journal ran an article the likes of which I have never seen. "The Magnitude of the Mess We're In." It was written by five well-known economists. It warns readers about a series of highly destructive outcomes of the federal government's present fiscal policies. The article says that these problems are close to being unmanageable.
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Sunday, September 23, 2012
Q.E. to Infinity Unintended Consequences / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
There is an intense debate going on in the first-class cabin of Economics Airlines about the direction in which our plane should be pointed. And while those of us back in the cheap seats don't get to help decide, knowing where we will land is of intense interest to all of us. This week we listen in on the debate, in the form of speeches and academic postings passed back from first class for the rest of us to read. This type of debate also occurred when Greenspan held rates down at an abnormally low level for a very long time. The unintended consequence of that move was a housing and debt/leverage bubble. Are there potential unintended consequences to Bernanke's current monetary policy, which some are calling Quantitative Easing Infinity? I suggest you put up your tray tables and fasten your seatbelts – the ride could get bumpy as we explore QE Infinity: Unintended Consequences.
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Bond Market Investors Set up for a Shock, Major Top in Bond Markets / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
During market pullbacks, financial advisors use a boilerplate response: "Let's rebalance the portfolio." Investors have heard that one for years.
The recommended allocation varies depending on a client's age and risk tolerance, but it typically involves shifting funds from stocks to bond holdings.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Trouble with Printing Money, QE3 Reflects Colossal Failure to Address Our Predicament / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
For a while now, I have been expecting a coordinated, global central bank action that would seek to print more money out of thin air, or "QE" (quantitative easing), as it is now called. Now we have two of the most important central banks, that of the U.S. (the Federal Reserve) and in Europe (the ECB) having committed to open-ended, limitless QE.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
ECB Game Over, Draghi and Bernanke’s Worst Nightmares Are About to Unfold / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis 2012
Ben Bernanke and Mario Draghi must be absolutely terrified.
These two men, in the last two weeks, have both initiated open-ended bond buying programs. The purpose of these programs, aside from keeping insolvent banks in business, was to scare the markets into believing that no matter what happens, the Central Banks will be able to step in and support the financial system.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
QE3 Blowing Up the Debt Bubble / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
It begins . . . the latest downgrade of credit worthiness for the former titan reserve currency. As reality strikes, financial confidence goes negative. Forget the pump and dump equity markets, just how long will it be before the bondholders demand higher interest rates to cover their risk? Ben Shalom Bernanke answers this concern with intentions to keep rates near zero. Pure escapism out of the strange world of banksters’ hubris - faces the rating agencies. US Credit Rating Cut by Egan-Jones ... Again
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
U.S. Treasury Bond Market Major Top Report / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
BOND YIELDS ARE POISED TO BEGIN RISING ON THE WAY TO DEFLATIONARY CREDIT CRISIS
U.S Treasury Bonds Our long term outlook for interest rates on U.S. Treasury securities has been a contrary opinion for many years. Most commentators have been expecting either economic expansion or Fed-induced inflation to push bond yields higher. Conquer the Crash predicted that long term rates on AAA-rated bonds would fall much further as the monetary environment shifted from lessening inflation to outright deflation. Figure 1 shows the forecast from 2002, and Figure 2 updates the graph to the present.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Quantitative Counterfeiting Forever / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the central bank would launch an unprecedented form of quantitative easing. This “new and improved” iteration of money printing will be without limit and duration. The Fed Head launched QE III ($40 billion of MBS purchases every month) on September 13th and stated that it will remain in effect until the labor market “improves substantially.” He also promised that, “The Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved…” In other words the Fed will continue to counterfeit money until there is a substantial decline in the unemployment rate.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 17, 2012
Federal Reserve Flirting with a New Paradigm Shift / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
It has been my long expectation that the Federal Reserve would uplift a sagging financial system by way of injecting more liquidly into our economic bloodstream.
On Thursday September 13th, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced Quantitative Easing 3, initiating the purchase of 40 billion dollars in mortgage backed securities per month on an open-ended basis.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012
QE3 Fed Panic / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
On September 13, the Fed announced QE 3. Pimco head Bill Gross tweeted Bernanke plans to buy mortgages "till the cows come home."
It's open-ended along with near zero short-term rates. His move suggests desperation. What does he know, we don't, and why now? Things aren't as they seem. They're worse.
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Saturday, September 15, 2012
Bernanke's Operation Twist Morphs into Operation Screw / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
With yesterday's Fed decision and press conference, Chairman Ben Bernanke finally and decisively laid his cards on the table. And confirming what I have been saying for many years, all he was holding was more of the same snake oil and bluster. Going further than he has ever gone before, he made it clear that he will be permanently binding the American economy to a losing strategy. As a result, September 13, 2012 may one day be regarded as the day America finally threw in the economic towel.
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Saturday, September 15, 2012
Fed QE 3 Program is Short Term Thinking For Long-Term Pain / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Yesterday the Fed announced QE 3: an open ended program through which the Fed will purchase $40 billion worth of Mortgage Backed Securities every month until it decides that the world is right again.
The implications of this are severe. However, the first question we have to ask is, “why now?”
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Friday, September 14, 2012
Marc Faber: Fed QE3 Policy Will 'Destroy the World' / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report, told Bloomberg Television's Betty Liu on "In the Loop" today that "the fallacy of monetary policy in the U.S. is to believe this money will go to the man on the street. It won't. It goes to the Mayfair economy of the well-to-do people and boosts asset prices of Warhols.
Faber said that he is "very happy. Very good for the Fed. Congratulations, Mr. Bernanke. I'm happy. My asset values go up but as a responsible citizen I have to say the monetary policies of the U.S. will destroy the world."
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Friday, September 14, 2012
Perma-QE: Lessons from Bernanke's Latest Splurge / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
Negative real interest rates show no signs of going away...
AFTER months of "quanticipation", the Federal Reserve has finally done it. Ben Bernanke yesterday announced another round of asset purchases.
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Friday, September 14, 2012
Unlimited QE3", Federal Reserve Attacks US Dollar, Risks Currency Warfare / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
QE3 Summary
The Federal Reserve has just announced that it would launch the so-called "QE3", or "Quantitative Easing Three" program. Key components are:
1) The creation of $40 billion a month out of thin air to purchase agency mortgage-backed securities at artificially low interest rates;
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Thursday, September 13, 2012
European House of Cards, Follow the Money / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
You’ve got to give super Mario Draghi his due – he’s no dummy. His comments in July "Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough", were just in time to reduce the yields on Italian and Spanish bonds for their major issues the next week.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Euro Crisis and Holland Mortgage Debt, Those Dutch Tulips Ain't Looking All That Rosy / Interest-Rates / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Well, the German Supreme Court decision is through, and it looks positive at a first superficial glance, so what could go wrong from here?
Sorry to break it to you, but plenty could. It’s amusing to see that decisions like these, the German court one or last week’s Draghi bond buying announcement, are seen as being positive for markets and/or entire economies, while in fact the only reason they have to be taken in the first place is that the situation is getting worse all the time.
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