Category: US Bonds
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Sunday, November 09, 2008
U.S. Treasury Bonds Set to Crash, Heres How to Make a Killing / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
A new president … new ideas … and an old problem: How to pay for it all!
Mike Larson writes: It's been one heck of a week in American politics. We have a new president-elect in Barack Obama … a new approach to governing this country … and lots of new ideas about how to get the economy off its back.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, November 07, 2008
US Treasury Bonds to be Hit by $500 Billion Quarterly Flood / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Martin Hutchinson writes: The U.S. Treasury Department announced Nov. 3 that it intended to borrow a record $550 billion in the fourth quarter. That represents a staggering $408 billion increase over Treasury's borrowing estimate from early August and includes $260 billion for the recapitalization of U.S. banks.
Make no mistake about it: There will be enough U.S. Treasury bonds to choke on, as the government tries to finance this debt.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 03, 2008
U.S. Bonds Weaker in advance of Massive Issuance of Bailout Treasury Bills / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market lost 4 points last week as the yield on the 10 year note gravitated back to the 4% level that seems to be acting as a magnet of equilibrium these days. While the bounce in the stock market has put some pressure on US Treasury and other government bonds, the real driver for interest rates at the present time is supply. There are certainly a number of other problems that are supportive for the bond market, but all the bailouts, guarantees and government as well as Federal Reserve programs will have to be paid for. It will be done with a massive increase in the issuance of Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Pullback in U.S. Treasury Bonds Appears Complete / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The large 6-week coil pattern in the Lehman 20-Year T-Bond ETF (AMEX: TLT) hit its 3rd coordinate on the high side last Friday at 100.00 (off of the 10/17 low at 93.02), and since has pulled back to this morning's low at 96.02, which represents a 60% correction of the 10/17-10/24 upleg. The strength off of 96.02 suggests strongly that the pullback is complete and is turning to the upside to enter a new upleg that will retest and likely hurdle resistance between 100.00 and 100.86 -- on the way to 102.00.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Investment Opportunities in Municipal Bonds? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The $2.66 trillion municipal bond market is embroiled in the overall credit market mess, creating an unusual complex of risks and opportunities.
The supply-demand forces in the municipal bond market have been unfavorable in the past year, causing prices to decline.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 20, 2008
Bonds Crash as Stock Markets Bounce / InvestorEducation / US Bonds
The bond market traded sharply lower again last week as tiny glimmers of hope appeared on the horizon indicating that the worst of the financial upheaval for this month might be behind us. After a record breaking crash in equities during the first third of October, stocks actually managed to show some gains last week as some metrics of financial distress such as elevated LIBOR levels, 0% Treasury Bill yields and record premiums for Credit Default Swaps managed to subside a tad. We are far from normal on most fronts but at least for the moment it appears that the sky has stopped falling!Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
US Treasury Bond Market Crash / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Martin here with an urgent update on these wild, wild markets.
The key factor many investors seem to be forgetting: While stock markets have enjoyed a historic rally, bond markets are suffering a dramatic decline.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Treasury Bonds ETF Inverse Trend to Stock Market Indices / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
To some degree, the TLTs (Lehman 20 Yr T-bond, ETF) trades inversely to the equity indices like the SPYs (for instance); however, my sense is the recent upside explosion in the stock averages and the recent plunge in TLT prices have "corrected" and defused the bulk of that relationship, which if accurate, means that a new relationship is forming based less on flight-to-safety and more on the still-challenging (to put it mildly) economic fundamentals that will not be corrected any time soon.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 13, 2008
$62 Trillion Credit Default Swaps Threaten U.S. Government Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Gold experienced sharp falls on Friday but was still up by more than 3% on the week. This was a very impressive performance considering that major equity indices crashed some 20% to 25% for the week (see Performance table).Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 06, 2008
Government Bonds Strong Rally on Grim Economic Outlook / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The bond market traded up last week as panic in financial markets intensified. The latest and greatest $700 Billion bailout package was finally passed by the US authorities last Friday, but it did not seem to make much difference as stocks dropped another 3-4% once the deal was officially passed. As previously mentioned in this here column, it is just another band-aid that hopes to provide quick relief for the symptoms of this gigantic financial crisis without addressing the real problem of dealing with the excess credit that has been built up on all fronts. European governments have also been busy with various rescue plans. Ireland and Germany are leading the charge by declaring that those governments now will guarantee all deposits in their respective banking systems. Surely other countries, including the US , will not be far behind adopting this drastic measure.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 29, 2008
Escalating Bailout Band-aids Hit US Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Bonds traded mostly in negative territory all last week. It looks like it is just regular business these days: another week, another bail-out package. The figure that is bandied about for the latest and greatest deal is a cool $700 Billion. It is just another band-aid in a series of larger and larger band-aids that hopes to provide quick relief for the symptoms of this gigantic financial crisis without addressing the real problem of dealing with the excess credit that has been built up on the consumer, corporate and government fronts. It will be raining Treasury bonds in the foreseeable future, so it is no wonder that the increasing weakness on the fundamental front is not providing much support for lower yields in the long term maturities at this juncture.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 22, 2008
US Treasury Bonds Experience Massive Volatility / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
Along with the rest of the financial markets, the US Treasury market experienced massive volatility during the past week. The Long Bond future traded up over 5 points before ending the week almost unchanged. The 30 year Treasury bond yield traded below 4%, which is the lowest level in over 40 years. Even more significantly, the US 3 month Treasury Bills yielded less than 0.1% for a couple of days as financial markets threatened to seize up. All of the sudden drawing comparisons – even in the main stream media - with the 1990s Japanese depression and the Great Depression of the 1930s does not seem so far fetched any more. It took us years if not decades to get into this mess, I expect it will take a little longer than 3 to 6 months to get out!Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 15, 2008
US Treasury Bonds Slide as Financial's Take Turns at Blowing Up / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The US Treasury market seems to be running out of steam here in spite of supportive data from economic fundamentals. Canadian long term bonds have kept pace with the trend to lower yields in the US market and seem to be poised for a breather as well.
The cream of the financial crop is relentlessly taking turns at blowing up. Last week it was Fannie and Freddie – the largest mortgage companies in the world, this week it was Lehman Brothers - another one of the largest investment dealers on the planet, next week it looks like it could be AIG – not long ago the largest insurance company around – that might be on the bankruptcy block.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 08, 2008
US Treasury Bonds Rally Continues as Fannie and Freddie Nationalized / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The US Treasury market has been stair-stepping higher since the middle of July. The US Long bond was within a whisker of its annual high on Friday immediately following the weaker than expected employment report. Canadian bonds also rallied in spite of disappointment with latest policy directives from the Bank of Canada.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
US Bond Yields Fall as Economies Continue to Weaken / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Treasury market has been stair-stepping higher since the middle of July. The US Long bond is closing in on the top of its annual range as the summer draws to a close with the Labour Day weekend upon us. It is time to take deep breath and have a look at what the big picture looks like. Naturally, we are most interested in how this picture will impact interest rates going forward.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 18, 2008
US Treasury Bonds Range Trade Around 4% / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Treasury market streaked to 3 positive weeks in a row even after higher than expected inflation data.
On the financial sector front, write-offs have now exceeded $500 Billion. Conservative estimates from established organizations such as the IMF are forecasting the final tab to be over a trillion dollars. Meanwhile more pessimistic forecasters such as Nouriel Roubini are looking for double that figure by the time it is all done. The take away from this story is that the write-offs are nowhere close to being finished. The flavour of the past week was auction rate securities.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 11, 2008
US Treasury Bond Market Outlook / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
The Treasury market managed to make it 2 positive weeks in a row even in the face of a stronger stock market.
Last week it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's turn to report losses that were out of this galaxy. Both of those stocks are now trading comfortably under $10 per share, but the Administration still maintains that there is no bailout necessary to save these mortgage behemoths. Credit spreads remain under pressure and liquidity is not improving. The Wall/Bay street analyst community is slow to react but the torrent of downgrades keep poring in as a result. On-going problems on this front are likely to support the bond market.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, August 08, 2008
Bond Market Portfolio Building Strategies / Portfolio / US Bonds
Bonds are an important part of many portfolios, particularly for those investors in mid to late states of economic life, or for endowments or pensions.
Bonds are important for capital preservation and portfolio volatility moderation. In some cases, for experienced traders, they can also be a source of capital gains, but they are normally used for conservative purposes.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 04, 2008
US Treasury Bonds Auctions to Put Dampener on Bond Market Rally / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
In spite of the bounce in the financial stocks, the negative news continues to pour in on the earnings (or lack thereof) front in that sector. Last week we saw Merrill Lynch in the news again as they wrote off another $5 billion+ in assets. Leading basket cases Fannie and Freddie will be rescued by the government but that will not be much help to the shareholders. Ongoing problems on this front are likely to support the bond market.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
U.S. Treasuries: Worse than the US Dollar! / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
That's right. You read it correctly. Now why would I say something that even most “experts” would laugh at? Because I want to point out once again how so many out there are in the dark, even the so-called experts; you remember, the guys who missed this entire meltdown. Of course, now with so many banks in a dangerous position, I've seen many advisers change face and jump on the doom bandwagon.Read full article... Read full article...