Category: US Bonds
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Why Buying Bonds is a Bad Idea / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
If there are two things that you can count on, it is that you have got to be pretty quick to get the last piece of pizza before I snag it, and that I am never remiss in telling people that buying bonds at these insanely-low yields is the Exact Wrong Thing (EWT) to do.
Unfortunately, my latest "student" was the cashier at the grocery store, who, it turns out, knows absolutely squat about what bonds are, although she admits that she has heard the word before.
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Thursday, November 11, 2010
BAC Rallying in Sync with U.S. Treasury Bonds TBT ETF? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The enclosed comparison chart supports my sense that the banks in general, and Bank of America (BAC) in particular, are sensitive to the recent shift in the shape of the yield curve. In a loose sort of way, the patterns between the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) and BAC exhibit some pattern similarity. Certainly, the April-August downtrends paralleled closely, which represented a relentless decline in longer-term interest rates (TBT) concurrent with the declining price of BAC.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Bond Market Disaster For Treasury, Municipal and High Yield Bond Investors / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Elliott wave analysis can warn you of trend changes when the rest of the investment public least expects a market reversal. With that in mind, we have created a new report for our free Club EWI members: "The Next Major Disaster Developing for Bond Holders."
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Thursday, November 04, 2010
The Next Major Disaster Developing for Bond Market Investors / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Elliott wave analysis can warn you of trend changes when the rest of the investment public least expects a market reversal. With that in mind, we have created a new report for our free Club EWI members: "The Next Major Disaster Developing for Bond Holders."
In this free report, you get some of the latest commentary on fixed-income markets adapted from various Elliott Wave International's publications, including 2010 issues of Robert Prechter's monthly Elliott Wave Theorist and its sister publication, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast.
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Monday, November 01, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Market Stabilises / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market stabilized last week. Although the economic data schedule was rather busy, trading was more heavily influenced by the Treasury auctions and month end activity as the second tier fundamental news did not offer any major surprises. While the volatility in the currency markets continued, the chop was more sideways and less directional. Trading in stocks and bonds had the same directionless character. The Treasury auctions were somewhat strange during this cycle. Normally the shorter maturities are relatively well received and the longest tranche can hit some bumps. Last week the 2 year auction was mediocre, the 5 year was sloppy but the 7 year bonds were very well received on Thursday setting up – as advertised - a seasonal bond rally into month end very nicely.
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Thursday, October 28, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Market Developing Disaster / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Greetings investor,
If you have money in mutual funds, Treasury bonds, municipal bonds or high-yield bonds, Robert Prechter has just issued a crystal-clear warning for you: Your money could be at risk.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Bubble about to POP! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Financial history shows that interest rates — and hence bond prices — have risen and fallen in long-term trends spanning decades. The following chart shows the 10-year Treasury since 1953.
As you can see, rates started rising shortly after the recession that ended in May 1954. In the second half of the 1960s this uptrend gathered speed. The market seemed to smell high inflation coming in the 1970s. And by the end of that decade and into 1980/81 rates soared. In fact, they peaked at slightly more than 15 percent — six times higher than the 1954 low!
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Fed Builds Bubble in Junk Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Fed's misguided policies have not done a thing for small businesses, the unemployment rate, or the real economy in general but they have induced a mad dash for yield in junk bonds, easily in a bubble state right now.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Prechter on The Next Major Disaster Developing for U.S. Treasury Bond Holders / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Greetings investor,
If you have money in mutual funds, Treasury bonds, municipal bonds or high-yield bonds, Robert Prechter has just issued a crystal-clear warning for you: Your money could be at risk.
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Saturday, October 23, 2010
So, Who Is Selling U.S. Treasury Bonds? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
QE2 is coming, and it isn’t stocks the Fed buys in large quantities with its quantitative easing. It buys treasury bonds, in an effort to drive long-term interest rates down, which should drive the price of bonds up.
But the bond market hasn’t been as excited about the idea of all that buying as the stock market has been. In fact, just the opposite. Treasury bonds have been tumbling since late August.
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Thursday, October 21, 2010
Foreigners Buy $117 Billion of U.S. Treasury Bonds During August / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Dave Forest writes: The U.S. bond market is murky these days.
Yields have been plummeting. But some of the action is almost certainly due to the Federal Reserve once again buying Treasuries. Since August 19, the Fed has bought $40 billion in government bonds.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010
U.S. Treasury and Junk Bonds, A Casino Royale? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) extraordinarily low interest rate policies have encouraged fixed income investors to take on evermore exposure to credit risks. With the global economic recovery looking more and more unstable with every new piece of economic data released, fixed income investors may be following a strategy akin to gambling at the roulette table. Investors may want to be careful not to let this transpire into a bad vacation in Vegas; we are concerned many investors may find themselves left out of pocket, hung-over with a bad taste in their mouth.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Further Limiting Your Risk with CDs or Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
It’s now official: As I suggested last week, Social Security recipients are not getting any cost-of-living increase in 2011. This marks the second straight year of flat monthly checks.
That fact, combined with the paltry interest rates on many traditional income investments, is certainly causing a lot of people major angst right now.
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Thursday, October 14, 2010
Key U.S. Treasury Bond Yields When QE1 Was Put in Place / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Fed announced plans to purchase government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) debt [$100 billion] and mortgage backed securities [$500 billion] on November 25, 2008 and increased the size of these purchases on March 18, 2009 to $200 billion and $1.25 trillion, respectively. Purchase of $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities was also announced on the same day in March 2009.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Investors Inflating the U.S. Treasury Bond Bubble / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Last week, bond prices were so high that a two-year government note yielded a miniscule 0.43%. To get more than one percent interest, you have to accept the five-year Treasury note yield of 1.32%. The ten-year yield? 2.60%. The 30-year long bond? A laughable 3.78%! Hahaha! This is insane!
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
Bernanke's Declaration of Independence, U.S. Treasury Junk Bond Future / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Ben Bernanke gave a grim speech on October 4. It did not get media attention. That was because it was so grim.
It was on the looming fiscal crisis of the Federal government. There will be no easy way to avoid it, he said. Congress has to decide what spending to cut. This means that Congress must decide which special-interest groups to alienate. Then it must decide which taxes to raise. Whose ox will get gored?
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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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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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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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Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The Risks of Buying U.S. Treasury Bond Funds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
A number of us here at Weiss have been warning you about the dangers of buying bonds in this ultra-low-interest-rate environment, especially longer-dated U.S. Treasuries.
But as I recently told my Dad’s Income Portfolio subscribers, I think mainstream investors are still ignoring the risks they’re taking with bonds, particularly when it comes to fixed-income mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
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