China takes another step toward fighting inflation, ending its currency peg
The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, will sell three-year bills for the first time since June 2008. The sale is a likely precursor to either an increase in official interest rates by the central bank or an end to the renminbi/dollar currency peg. In...Treasury yields hit 4% but the climb looks very gradual from here
Yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note hit 4% yesterday for the first time since June. And I think yields will keep rising in the months ahead. But the United States is getting lucky. Thanks to the damage the Greek debt crisis has done to the euro, I think the rise...U.S. interest rates are rising–and 4% on 10-year Treasuries is in sight again
Have you noticed that long-term U.S. interest rates have been inching upwards even as the Federal Reserve holds its short-term target at 0% to 0.25%? Yields on the 10-year Treasury bond finished last week at 3.95% on Friday, April 2. That’s within an eyelash of the...How to maximize what your cash pays even when nothing is paying much of anything now
Got cash? Maybe you’d love to invest it, but where? The stock market seems pricy after a 70% rally from the March 2009 lows. And it’s been so up and down lately that it doesn’t inspire much confidence. So maybe stocks are just too risky for you. Or you’re close to...Are interest rate hawks pushing policy at the Federal Reserve?
Thursday’s Federal Reserve decision to raise the discount rate, the interest rate banks pay to borrow from the Fed, may not be the “no big thing” that chairman Ben Bernanke and the financial markets (so far) say it is. The minutes of the January 14 meeting of the...Interest rates could stay low for longer than anyone now projects
The Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s central bank, surprised just about everybody by keeping its benchmark interest rate unchanged today, February 2. All 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted a quarter-percentage-point increase to 4%. Futures...Japan's huge budget gamble will push up global interest rates
It’s a desperate gamble but Japan’s Democratic Party government, headed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, doesn’t have much choice. To break the hold of deflation on the Japanese economy, the country has to spend money—lots of money—it doesn’t have to stimulate an...Mr. Bond turns bearish on bonds
Mr. Bond, Pimco’s Bill Gross, doesn’t like bonds so much anymore. Gross, who manages the $200 billion Total Return Fund at Pacific Investment Management (Pimco) told CNBC on December 7 that Treasuries are over-valued given the odds that inflation and interest rates...Interest rates are rising even before the Federal Reserve moves
The march to higher U.S. interest rates is on. Oh, the Federal Reserve won’t increase short-term rates, the only ones it directly controls, for an “extended period” yet. I still think we’re looking at mid- to late-2010 before the Fed moves. Ben Bernanke and Company...Banks buy Treasuries paying less than 0% interest: What's going on?
The yield on a 90-day Treasury bill closed at 0.005% on Friday, November 20. Yep, some investors were willing to lock up their money for three months and get an exciting five-hundredths of a percent in interest. But that’s not the most shocking thing that happened on...How long will interest rates stay low? Pay attention to what the Fed does and not just what it says
Have you ever played Three Card Monte? It’s a classic street con here in New York. All you have to do to win is guess which of three cards is the Queen. The dealer and his accomplices set up the mark with a fast shuffle, often on a cardboard box so that nothing...The U.S. Treasury is getting ready for the day the Fed raises interest rates
Oh, those sneaky little dogs at the U.S. Treasury. Did they really think they could start getting ready for higher interest rates without anyone noticing? You’ll find it in the details of the Treasury’s upcoming auction of $81 billion in new and rolled-over U.S. debt....Text of the Fed's statement today: no change in "extended period" language
Straight from the Fed’s website. No significant change in language. Remember that I said the key phrase from the last statement was “…economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”...Listen carefully to the Fed at 2:15–words count right now
Sometimes words are more important than deeds. Nobody expects the Federal Reserves Open Market Committee to do anything about interest rates at its meeting today, November 4. It can’t cut short-term interest rates since they’re effectively at 0%. And they...Ultimately, this stock market rally lives and dies on interest rates
So it’s a good thing when people such as Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn say that the Fed will keep interest rates near zero “for an extended period” as he did in a September 30 speech in Washington. As long as interest rates are so low, bond yields on...Will the Fed's news be good or bad for the dollar?
Inquiring minds want to know: Will all the moving parts in the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee press release of August 12 net out as good or bad for the dollar? The answer is important to more than just currency traders: the dollar is likely to be the...Wednesday is Fed day: Here's what Wall Street is hoping to hear
At a little after 2 p.m. on Wednesday August 12 the Federal Reserve will be either naughty or nice. From Wall Street’s perspective, anyway. Naughty, according to Wall Street, would be a press release that confirms the Fed’s view that the economy is in a...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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