It wasn’t all that long ago when the media began to fill itself up with one story after another about how huge looming inflationary pressures were causing the entire “market” to rethink its lengthy and determined anti-reflationary stance. Back in March, for instance, S&P had joined this chorus by zeroing in on eurodollar futures, of all instruments, and coming back [...]
Back on February 25, Treasury auctioned 7-year notes and it did not go (as) well. Maybe you remember us saying something about it, and then again and again and… The prevailing view then – and now – was reflation hadn’t just accelerated, the true inflation long-promised by so much “money printing” (or at least by those who equate bank reserves [...]
The way it has been described since, yesterday’s CPI estimates for last month represented a seismic shift in the inflation debate. There is no more argument, apparently, and if that wasn’t apparent enough then today it was followed up with even more highly-touted evidence. Producer prices, the PPI, came up even more over-the-moon than those for consumers.The commodities portion, no [...]
Friday, July 14, 2000, was a bad day to be in Treasuries. The 10-year UST yield spiked 9 bps after the Census Bureau reported June 2000 retail sales growth had been nearly 10% year-over-year. That plus a similarly pleasant reading from the Federal Reserve for Industrial Production left bond traders rethinking their trades, a sudden burst of inflationary confidence which [...]
One of the most deceptive stumbling blocks to figuring this whole thing out has been the rigidly binary approach to whatever any central bank does. The public is given one of only two choices: either monetary policies have been Goldilocks, just right; or, the message from critics, it is always ever in danger of being too good. That’s it; those [...]
Treasury Secretaries, like Federal Reserve Chairmen, they don’t talk much about or pay much attention to the market’s need for collateral. They may pay some, but not specifically collateral if only under the vaguely defined category of “market consideration” when setting auction supply. Collateral shortages have come and gone, however dreadful, never eliciting a direct response insofar as supply has [...]
On December 26, 2018, the US Treasury sold off $41 billion in 5-year notes. “Only” $85.8 billion in bids were submitted, weakening the widely watched bid-to-cover ratio to a chatty 2.09. The prior sale of 5s had yielded a bid-to-cover of 2.495, nearly $100 billion in bids for $40 billion on offer, so something was clearly up. Had it been [...]
Given the historic data for US retail sales, “somehow” the bond market ignored them yesterday (and today). Yields globally fell for the most part, with real yields (TIPS) really discounting the significance of consumers in March. Bonds aren’t buying that this is anything other than temporary.Not surprisingly, the mainstream media refuses not to buy what bonds aren’t. I mean, for [...]
On February 23, the US Treasury sold off $60 billion and change of 2-year notes (CUSIP 91282CBN0). This particular shorter-term instrument has been in the crosshairs of the reflation trade, lurching in and out of it going back to last October, perhaps even late September. Caught up being the immediate tenor following the bills which have been bid (for “some” [...]
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury has obtained some bids. Not long ago the certain harbinger of bond rout doom, the long end maybe has joined the rest of the world in its global pause if somewhat later than it had begun elsewhere (including, importantly, its own TIPS real yield backyard). Even nearer-in inflation expectations have rounded off at their current [...]
Stay In Touch