What would it look like if the Treasury market was forced into a cross between 2013 and 2018? I think it might be something like late 2021. Before getting to that, however, we have to get through the business of decoding the yield curve since Economics and the financial media have done such a thorough job of getting it entirely [...]
The first half of 2021 was inundated with government helicopters, more QE’s, and then CPI’s put up with guarantees the “inflation” was going to continue for a long time. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s often hapless CEO, proudly declared US Treasuries beyond the touch of any 10-foot pole. With the economy on fire, he “reasoned”, who would ever want safe and [...]
Barely more than two weeks. That’s all was needed for the headlines to scream “bloodbath”, “end of the bull market”, and the always popular BOND ROUT!!! The 10-year Treasury yield had bottomed out in August and by mid-September 2019 this key benchmark rate screamed upward by 43 bps in just seven sessions. Yes, seven. To think, the financial media has [...]
If you're fortunate to be able to do this long enough, you’re absolutely assured to get caught with your pants down and almost certainly more than once. In the short run, it’s all a crapshoot anyway. Markets fluctuate and never, ever go in a straight line. And just when you claim to be right on top, they yank the rug [...]
So much easier to just change the target, to move the goalposts. Having failed for weeks to provoke any “tantrum” to the Federal Reserve’s oncoming taper, even before today’s FOMC meeting all attention was instead simply shuffled off tapering QE and onto rate hikes. Bring the dots back! Anything to keep up the idea the Fed is a central bank [...]
The US Treasury auctioned off $45 billion in 3-month (13w) bills this morning. Despite the Federal Reserve paying 5 bps for SOMA UST collateralized, for “some” reason the primary market’s players wanted this issue far more. The auction’s high was just 3.5 bps, its median 2.5. These are down from 4 bps and 3.5 bps, respectively, last Monday. With the [...]
The dollar stopped falling on January 6, beginning a reversal which has lasted more than eight months. This forewarning was joined two days later when TIPS breakevens crossed, inverting the 5-year when compared to the 10-year. About a week after that, T-bills.In other words, as I had written up last week, there actually were quite a few contrary indications in [...]
January 2021 was, it may have seemed, only the start of something big. Huge. Colossal. Coronavirus vaccines had been discovered, publicized, and rolled out, meaning for the first time a real shot at ending the pandemic. The world could quickly get back to normal, the economy recovering its footing, and between January and that bright future Uncle Sam was going [...]
Almost universally, the comeback is always QE. Whenever trying to discuss the bond market’s unmovable pessimism in 2021, especially now about six months after reflation ended, people just don’t want to hear about such low (and lower) growth and inflation expectations in nominal yields. No, that’s not deflationary potential, they’d say, it was and is the Fed buying bonds which [...]
What an intriguingly odd month September 2017 turned out to be. To start with, Reflation #3 only seemed to be gaining strength. The full throat behind Inflation Hysteria #1 was still ahead, as was its related personage the BOND ROUT!!!! And yet, early in that late summer month a sudden eruption; actually several. On September 5, T-bills. A day later [...]
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