Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, May 27, 2010
Stage Set For Another Bernanke Inflationary Adventure / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, has been eerily quiet during the recent market storm. To be sure, seemingly oblivious to the happenings in EU-land Mr. Bernanke’s speech, The Economics of Happiness, was delivered shortly after major riots in Greece and shortly before the historic nearly $1 trillion plan was announced to try and prevent the destruction of the Euro. As for Bernanke’s speech a month earlier, the tone was that of victory:
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
E.U. Bailout Just Delays Inevitable Sovereign Debt Default / Interest-Rates / US Debt
Replacing most of Europe's colorful notes and various coins less than a decade ago, the euro is on the brink of extinction, according to Trader Tracks' Roger Wiegand, sharing news and views of Euroland's critical condition with Gold Report readers in this exclusive interview. Roger says the euro at $1.20 is the "line in the sand where big trouble will start. . .and that's dangerously close." On the other side of the world, he sees China doing well now, but doesn't pin his hopes on China as the engine for global economic growth as so many others do. In fact, he says things there are "fraying a bit on the edges." So, is there a white horse waiting in the wings to lead the world back to economic good health? Read on. . .
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
In a Word, the Problem is DEBT / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Recent developments in the euro zone that increasingly look like they will lead to the restructuring (if not the collapse) of one of the world’s major currencies and the potential for this “contagion” to move first north to the U.K. and then west to the U.S. have many people wondering what’s gone wrong with the global monetary system.
How could advanced Western economies have run into such trouble?
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Fed Confirms What Gold, Hard Asset Investors Already Knew / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Exit plan? What exit plan? The Federal Reserve issued a report before Congress in an attempt to clarify its stance during one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. The Fed, as always, said very little, but did make one thing very clear—the Fed has no idea what it is doing.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Why U.S. Treasury Bonds Aren't the 'safe haven' Investors Think... / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
In the last few weeks, international investors spooked by the budget crisis in Greece and the turmoil in southern Europe have been flocking into the U.S. Treasury bond market as a "safe haven."
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Market Keeps Chugging Along as Stocks, Gold and Commodities Remain Under Pressure / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market just keeps chugging along very convincingly here through the seasonally negative month of May. The stock market and commodities remained under pressure as Gold has joined the sell-off. Looking at the Fed’s stock vs. 10 Year Note Relative Value Model, it has drastically swung from bonds 2.5 standard deviations cheap in March to stocks 2.6 standard deviations cheap last Thursday. Looks like some of the short term moves are a bit ahead of themselves at this point, but the message is fairly clear: the low hanging fruit has been picked as far as the risk-trade is concerned; the character of the market is rapidly changing.
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Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sovereign Debt Crisis, America, PIIGS “R” Us too? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
The title of this essay may be a play on words but the facts are nothing of the sort. Indeed, the facts suggest that the financial position of the U.S. government may not be all that much better than the financial position of the governments of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece or Spain, the so-called PIIGS. In fact, given the agenda the Obama administration has set for America, one so far distinguished by ever larger government spending programs being financed by ever larger amounts of debt, the U.S. government may be well on its way to becoming PIIGS “R” Us.
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
U.S. Interest Rates Remain on Hold or Heading Higher? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
The Case for a Fed Rate Hike
Employment Is Turning the Corner
The Headwinds of Money Supply
Who Stole the Inflation?
The Fed Is On Hold
An Inverted Yield Curve?
LA, Vancouver, San Francisco, and a First
Often Wrong, Seldom in Doubt
Everywhere there are arguments that we are in a "V"-shaped recovery. And there are signs that in fact that is the case. Today we will look at some of those, and then take up the topic of when the Fed will raise rates. We open the case and look at the evidence. Is there enough to come to a real conviction? I think there is. (And at the end of the letter I mention two conferences I am speaking at in the next few months, in Vancouver and San Francisco.)
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Friday, May 21, 2010
U.K. Government Bonds, Gilts Ahead of the Pack / Interest-Rates / UK Debt
We wrote a Market Update on the day of the UK General election outlining 3 possible scenarios for the Gilt market post-election.
We noted how we thought the market would rally on two of the possible outcomes:
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Friday, May 21, 2010
Government Budget Deficit Financing and Inflation / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
I assume that you know how the banking system developed and how the banks could improve the services rendered by gold, by transferring assets from one individual to another individual in the books of the banks. When you study the development of the history of money you will discover that there were countries in which there were systems in which all the payments were made by transactions in the books of a bank, or of several banks. The individuals acquired an account by paying gold into this bank. There is a limited quantity of gold, so the payments which are made are limited. And it was possible to transfer gold from the account of one man to the account of another.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Small Investors Rush Into Junk Bonds, Where is the Fiduciary Responsibility? / Interest-Rates / International Bond Market
Burnt by the stock market too many times to count, small investors have been herding into junk bonds instead. Indeed, the mad rush into junk continues even as debt covenants weaken and fund managers are skeptical.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Greek Debt Tragedy a Sneak Preview of What's Coming to Washington / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
"The current European debt crisis likely will not end until the euro collapses as a currency and takes the entire European Union with it." ~ Dennis Gartman, hedge fund manager and writer of The Gartman Letter
I was just in Greece, where the stupidity and venality of the political class are in full view.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Global Debt Defaults Ahead as Keynesian's Race to Bankruptcy / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
The euro is falling. It is at the lowest exchange rate to the dollar in four years.
Confidence in the euro is falling because it is becoming clear that the region's commercial bankers have made the same sorts of bad decisions that American commercial bankers made after 2000. They loaned money to debtors in Eastern Europe who will not be able to repay. These loans were collateralized by real estate, which rose. Real estate prices in Eastern Europe are now falling. The bubble has popped.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Debt Default ‘Deferral’ of Greece a Dangerous Precedent – Got Gold? / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
If the implications of the recent Greek tragedy were not so serious it would have been seen more as a Greek comedy (of fiscal errors). In fact, however, to deploy another metaphor, Greece's sovereign debt is seen as the proverbial canary in the coal mine - a microcosm of the relentlessly growing sovereign debt that has taken much of Europe by storm and is threatening to spread to the U.S.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Guess Who’s Even MORE Broke Than Greece? / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Sentiment is a strange thing.
Greece’s debt issues have been staring everyone in the face for years. And yet it wasn’t until January 2010 that they suddenly became “relevant” to the investment world.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Eurozone Debt Crisis Goes Totally Looney Tunes! / Interest-Rates / Euro-Zone
Baguettes Vs. Bratwursts - The situation in Europe has officially passed “crazy” and gone into total Looney-Tune-ville. Let’s review how this once great economic entity has shifted from producing anything of value to an economy primarily involved in the production of insane headlines that look like something from The Onion or some other satirical newspaper.
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Monday, May 17, 2010
Will Euro Sovereign Debt Contagion Cross the Atlantic to the U.S.? / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Even after the massive rescue package [$750 billion] was delivered, confidence in the € seeped away and it weakened to $1.2320. With U.S. sovereign debt at unacceptable levels too, the debt fear 'contagion' cross the Atlantic? More than that, if bond values continue to drop will the lending banks to the debts issued survive. Can this happen in the States and will their banks be dragged into the crisis?
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Monday, May 17, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bonds, Stay Long and Earn the Carry! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market did exactly what it was supposed to do last week: it pulled back to the break-out level at 120 and then it started moving higher again. In spite of the massive bounce in stocks on Monday, the market remains quite nervous. The long auction cycle included a record $16 Billion 30 year bonds on Thursday. The market received the 3 year tranche very well, the 10 years were better than average and the long bond managed to drum up enough interest to keep key support at 120 intact. While crude oil is leading commodities to the downside, gold continues to have a remarkable bid as it moved to new all time highs near 1250 on Friday.
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Monday, May 17, 2010
India Interest Rates Scenario Part1 / Interest-Rates / India
If you are thinking Interest Rates(IR) would not go up? Think twice.
All major inflationary forces acting like windstorm swiping the world and pouring debt(currency printing ) across the world first to bail out corporate than to taxpayers and now to nations and in last stage probably to entire world seems like windstorm & rainstorm are converging to category 5 Hurricane Katrina.
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Saturday, May 15, 2010
ECB Abandons Independence and Prints $1Trilion to Prevent Euro-Zone Collapse / Interest-Rates / Euro-Zone
Europe Throws a Hail Mary Pass
It's More Than Just Government Debt
The Grand Misallocation
In a 1975 playoff game, the Dallas Cowboys were nearly out of time and facing elimination from the playoffs, down 14-10 against a very good Minnesota Vikings team. The Cowboys future Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach had no very good options. He later said he dropped back to pass, closed his eyes and, as a good Catholic, said a Hail Mary and threw the ball as far as he could. Wide receiver Drew Pearson had to come back for the ball and, in a very controversial play, managed to catch the ball on his hip and stumble into the end zone. Angry Vikings fans threw trash onto the field, and one threw a whiskey bottle that knocked a referee out. After that play, all last-minute desperation passes became known as Hail Mary passes. (That was a very thrilling game to watch!)
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