Analysis Topic: Interest Rates and the Bond Market
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Is the Fed Engaged in Quantitative or Qualitative Easing? / Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
As I define it, qualitative easing. If the Fed were pursuing a quantitative easing policy, its balance sheet would be growing at an unusually high rate. The Fed allegedly began to engage in quantitative easing at its mid-March FOMC meeting this year.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
ECB, The Reluctant Interest Rate Hawk? / Interest-Rates / ECB Interest Rates
By: Axel_Merk
The European Central Bank (ECB) kept its main refinancing rate unchanged at 1%, but announced that it will phase out its six-month and one-year refinancing facilities and move to an index-based interest rate rather than a fixed or auction based rate for future refinancing operations.
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Thursday, December 03, 2009
Long-Term U.S. Treasury Yield Setting Up for Powerful Advance / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The daily chart of the 10-Year T-Bond Futures could be one of the most important charts we discuss entering 2010. Why? Purely from a technical perspective, let’s notice that three distinct instances in the last 12 months YIELD pressed to 3.50% or lower, only to see an upside reversal back above 3.50% very quickly thereafter. In other words, the “beachball effect” kicks in under 3.50%. With the foregoing as a backdrop, let’s also notice that YIELD has been DECLINING since June even though nonfarm payrolls have been improving.
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Thursday, December 03, 2009
Pension Annuity Interest Rates at Record Lows / Interest-Rates / Pensions & Retirement
By: MoneyFacts
The prospects of securing a comfortable retirement have taken a further blow with news that pension annuity rates have hit an all time low. Research from Investment Life & Pensions Moneyfacts has revealed that, after holding firm during the summer, annuity rates have fallen steadily over the last two months.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Treasury Bonds Signal Inflation Pressures Moderating / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Guy_Lerner
The composite indicator that measures the trends in gold, crude oil, and yields on the 10 year Treasury has moderated significantly. See figure 1 a weekly chart of the S&P500 with the indicator in the lower panel.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Dubai Debt Bubble Bursting Triggering Financial Shock Waves / Interest-Rates / Global Economy
By: Washingtons_Blog
You know about Dubai's economic crisis. But do you know the background to - and fallout from - the crisis?
A Brief History
Historically, Dubai had an oil-based economy.
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Monday, November 30, 2009
Governments Benefit From ‘Teaser’ Interest Rates, Wait ’til They Come to an End… / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
By: Bill_Bonner
There are so many breathtaking things going on around us we practically suffocate. Last week, three-month US Treasury-bills yielded all of 0.015% interest. Some yields were below zero. In effect, investors gave the government money. The government thanked them and promised to give them back less money three months later. How do you explain this strange transaction? Was there a full moon?
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Dubai Debt Default illustrates Financial Crisis Not Over / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Mike_Whitney
The default in Dubai is not the beginning of Financial Meltdown 2. Don't look for dominoes here. Yes, it does raise serious questions about the vast debt-overhang in emerging economies--particularly East Europe. But, this is not a "sovereign default" in the strict sense, nor is there any great risk of contagion.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Greece Tests the Limit of Sovereign Debt As it Grinds Toward Slump / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
By: Trader_Mark
I've been reading quite a bit of handwring over Greece in the UK papers, and came upon this piece from one of my favorite writers, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, early this week. It was in the "to do pile" to put on the website, but I never got around to it. It appears with events in the past 48 hours, there is no time like the present.
Friday, November 27, 2009
New Record Low Two Year Treasuries Yield, Is This Start Of U.S. Dollar Rally? / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Mike_Shedlock
In the wake of the Dubai default (please see Dubai Defaults - Deflation In Action - Watched Pot Theory Revisited for details), I am up watching treasury yields.Two year treasury yields plunged to an new all-time record low as the following Bloomberg table shows.
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Thursday, November 26, 2009
Zero Interest Rates, the Cruelest Tax of All / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Sarel_Oberholster
The zero-interest-rate policy of the Fed is sold to the public as a benign economic rescue in the public interest. The stark reality is that this policy is a disguised tax implemented by the Fed. It takes income from savers and hands it as a subsidy to borrowers. It also facilitates and funds the fiscal deficit policies of central government. Such a well disguised tax is a boon for governments. The cruelest tax of all is this 100 percent tax on interest income, disguised and rationalized as "good" policy.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Average Two Year Fixed Mortgage Interest Rate Falls to Lowest Since June / Interest-Rates / Mortgages
By: MoneyFacts
The average two year fixed has fallen to 4.99%, the first time it has been below 5.00% since 23 June 2009.
A string of rate rises during July saw the average quickly rise, peaking at 5.21% by the end of the month.
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Monday, November 23, 2009
Fundamental Backdrop Remains Supportive of Treasury Bonds / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Levente_Mady
The bond market crept up toward the middle of the 118 to 124 trading range of recent months as per our advertisement in last week’s issue. 3 month Treasury Bills are back to negative yields again heading into the year end, just like last year. While 3 month Bills are back under 0, the swap market is telling us that sovereign risk is on the increase. Credit Default Swap spreads for most of the largest developed nations (think G7) have widened noticeably over the past few weeks. With the front end literally at 0, it looks like long rates will dictate the shape of the yield curve for the rest of the year.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Unintended Consequences of the Federal Reserve's Low Interest Rate Policy / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: John_Mauldin
Where the Wild Things Are
It Is Not Just Japan
The Euro-Yen Cross and the Dollar Carry Trade
Where the Wild Things Are is a beloved children's book and now a beautiful movie. But in the investment world there are really scary wild things lurking about in the hidden recesses of the economic landscape. Today we look at one of the unintended consequences of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy.
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
What If the Foreigners Stop Buying Our Debt? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
By: Doug_Horning
By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, Casey Research - “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all.
Many citizens probably still cling to the old saw that public debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” Wrong. Debt always matters. And as for whom we owe it to, it is a lot of kind (or, at least, not yet unkind) strangers.
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Monday, November 16, 2009
The Fed's Policy of Near Zero Interest Rates / Interest-Rates / US Interest Rates
By: Bob_Chapman
One of the outcomes of Fed policy of near zero interest rates is that seniors cannot live on an income of 1-1/% and that pension funds, insurance companies and endowments cannot fulfill their commitments. As yields eventually rise, although the Fed has signaled that is at least a year away, and if Japan is any guideline, we could be 19 years away from solving the problem of fiduciaries.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Are U.S. Treasury Bond Yields Headed Lower? / Interest-Rates / US Bonds
By: Guy_Lerner
I am beginning to see signs that there is a high likelihood of this occurring over the next couple of weeks. Figure 1 is a weekly chart of the Ultra Short Lehman 7-10 Year Treasury (symbol: PST); this is an ETF that corresponds to the inverse of the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 7-10 Year U.S. Treasury index.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Fixed Interest Rate Bonds Shelf Life Hits New Low / Interest-Rates / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
Savers looking to take out a fixed rate bond need to act fast after the average bond shelf-life fell to a new low of 23 days last month.
At its peak in March 2006, the average shelf-life of a fixed rate bond was 158 days.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Origins of the Federal Reserve Banking System- Part 3 / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Jacob Schiff Ignites the Drive for a Central Bank
The defeat of the Fowler Bill for broader asset currency and branch banking in 1902, coupled with the failure of Secretary of Treasury Shaw's attempts of 1903–1905 to use the Treasury as a central bank, led the big bankers and their economist allies to adopt a new solution: the frank imposition of a central bank in the United States.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Origins of the Federal Reserve Banking System-Part 2 / Interest-Rates / Central Banks
By: Murray_N_Rothbard
Charles A. Conant: Surplus Capital and Economic Imperialism
The years shortly before and after 1900 proved to be the beginnings of the drive toward the establishment of a Federal Reserve System. It was also the origin of the gold-exchange standard, the fateful system imposed upon the world by the British in the 1920s and by the United States after World War II at Bretton Woods. Even more than the case of a gold standard with a central bank, the gold-exchange standard establishes a system, in the name of gold, which in reality manages to install coordinated, international, inflationary, paper money.
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