Price tag for keeping the government open: $500 billion added to deficit
The Senate is set to vote later today on a deal that would fund the government for two years and add $500 billion in new spending to a deficit already pegged at north of $1 trillion. The deal is extremely likely to pass the Senate–it’s got something for...
Bond market weakness returns on pause in rout, weak auction
With a pause in the Friday/Monday stock market rout, the bond market isn’t getting support from a flight to safety (at least for the moment) and worries specific to the bond market have remerged as the leading factor in bond yields. Today the yield on the...
S&P 500 erases its gains for 2018; with index down 4.1% today, Wall Street looking for 10% drop from 2018 high
Is this starting to get serious? Wall Street still doesn’t think so. With the Standard & Poor’s 500 down 4.1% today, it has wiped out all of its 2018 gains. Wall Street continues to look for no more than a 10% drop for the January 26 high total...
On my JubakAM.Com subscription site, I just added an ETF for the bond bear market–and today’s meltdown
The logic is pretty simple–I think the rise in yields on Treasuries and the anticipated rise in interest rates from the Federal Reserve that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 650 points today isn’t over. There’s just too much...
The march to a yield of 2.7% on the 10-year Treasury has set off nervous market chatter–and a retreat in stock prices today
When is high too high? The U.S. stock market has been a real champ at sailing past the prospect of higher interest rates to new high after new high. But the march of the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury has led to a pause for thought among traders and investors. The...
Full reverse: Dollar recovers as President Trump talks up advantages of strong currency
Today somebody in the Trump administration decided that the idea of the world’s biggest debtor nation talking down the value of its currency–as Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin did yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos–might be a bad...
Dollar slump continues this morning as ECB president Draghi shrugs off euro strength
The dollar continued its fall this morning after European Central Bank president Marie Draghi voiced minimal concern over the rise in the euro. That currency topped $1.25 for the first time since 2014. The MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index jumped 0.9%, its biggest...
China officials said to recommend slowing or halting purchases of U.S. Treasuries
Just what an already jittery bond market needs: reports that senior Chinese officials reviewing the country’s purchases or U.S. Treasuries have recommended slowing of halting that buying. It’s not clear from these reports whether the recommendation is...
We’ve moved to a risk-off market–for how long?
It’s a classic risk off market today as of 4 p.m. New York time. All the safe havens are up. The yen is ahead 1.2% to 109.65 to the dollar, breaching the 110 level for the first time since November. Gold is 1.73% higher to $1275.60 an ounce. The 10-year U.S....
Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my paid sites: How to tell when the bond bear market is finally at the door
Let me share a post that I put up last night on my paid sites about when the great bull market in bonds will finally turn into the great bear market in bonds. Yes, that’s sites. Plural. I’ve been busy building a second site, JugglingWithKnives.com, that...
Selling my Treasury ETF because my scenario on global central bank policy was wrong
When I bought shares of the iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF) back on June 28, 2016, it was in the belief that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates (as early as September or as late as December) while other central banks remained committed to their...
Have bond markets finally started to have doubts about central bank commitments to endless stimulus?
I’ve been waiting seemingly forever for the financial markets to show some acknowledgement that central bank stimulus policies can’t go on until the sun turns into a dark cinder. For how long have I been waiting? More than a year certainly. But each time I...
Treasuries slip as market struggles to absorb supply
Update July 12. The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose to 1.52%, the highest level this month (and prices fell). Last week the yield on the 10-year Treasury hit a record low of 1.318%. The climb in Treasury yields is likely to be temporary, in my opinion. The market is...The Fed says it will stay the course and bond yields keep moving up
Nothing surprising in the news from the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee yesterday. The Fed said its plans were unchanged and that it would buy $600 billion in Treasuries in the first six months of 2011 in order to stimulate the economy. The economy itself, the...China reverses another policy and starts new buying of U.S. Treasuries again
China’s decision to end a strict yuan-dollar peg is getting all the headlines today—even though the likely appreciation of the yuan versus the dollar is in the vicinity of 3% or so in 2010. That’s hardly a game changer. But the bigger China-U.S. news dates back a few...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...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...Good news on jobs hurts Treasuries, oil, stocks; crushes gold
All it took was an unexpectedly strong unemployment report. Following the Bureau of Labor Statistics release of numbers showing the economy lost just 11,000 jobs in November rather than the expected 125,000, the Dollar Index broke above its 2009 trend line and the...The next bubble? Here's a logical and surprising place to look
Everyone is warning about bubbles. These warnings have all been unconvincing to me because they imagine that the next bubble will look like the last one. Until today. Gillian Tett in the November 23 Financial Times has come up with the first description of a bubble...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...Go figure: Demand for U.S. Treasuries soars
They pay almost nothing. They’re denominated in a currency that is losing value every day. And yet investors keep loading up on U.S. Treasuries. Overseas buyers increased their holdings for a fourth consecutive month in August, to an all-time high of $3.45...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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