Tag: 30-year bond

It's Time To Go long

Posted on by George Yacik

While President Trump’s tweet calling the members of the Federal Reserve “boneheads” for failing to cut interest rates as low as Trump wants them grabbed the financial headlines, his suggestion that the government “refinance” its enormous $22.5 trillion debt got less attention. At the most, it was dismissed as undoable.

It’s hard to believe that the smartest people on Wall Street and at the U.S. Treasury can’t come up with some kind of scheme that would take advantage of today’s – and probably tomorrow’s – historically low bond yields and save taxpayers some money. This job would fall to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin – himself a former Goldman Sachs investment banker – and not the Fed.

On Thursday, Mnuchin told CNBC that Treasury is “very seriously considering” issuing a 50-year bond next year. “We think there is some demand for it. There are some technology issues we need to make sure we have in place; there are market issues. But we would do this in a way that if there is demand, it’s something that we would meet.”

If Walt Disney and several European countries can sell 100-year bonds, certainly the United States of America can.

The initial reaction to Trump’s suggestion about refinancing Treasury debt was met with derision and skepticism. Continue reading "It's Time To Go long" →

Economist Lays Out The Next Step For The Fed

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

Mr. Steven Ricchiuto, he of a Masters in Economics from Columbia, has laid out the proper plan for the Federal Reserve in this oh so noisy environment in which an unassuming and fairly quiet man is trying to tune out a personal bully on Twitter, tune out the stock market’s daily whipsaw and do what he perceives to be the right thing.

Today, the academic named above throws in with Trump and politely harangues Chairman Powell thusly in an open letter. You can read it by hitting the graphic…

Stagflation this, Volcker that, deflation the other thing… blah blah blah. But then he gets to the interesting parts, the money parts. Of the post-Volcker era he states…

To rein in excess money supply growth, the Fed trimmed bank reserves — high-powered money — which resulted in dramatically higher short-term rates. This shift in policy served to dampen inflationary expectations, and thus inflation, while increasing central bank credibility. The dollar strengthened and elected officials became strong supporters of an independent Fed as a result.

Indeed, in microcosm, these periodic drives to the lower rungs of the Continuum are all about Fed credibility. Credibility rebuilt after events like last year’s break of the monthly EMA 100 limiter (red dashed line) on the 30 year Treasury yield.

In H2 2018 while the supposed bond experts were uniformly aligned in a BOND BEAR MARKET!!! posture and market participants were wondering why Jerome Powell was being so stern amid the stock market wipe out NFTRH noted that the Fed was not going to self-immolate in a blaze of inflationary expectations (featuring out of control long-term yields). Credibility would need to be rebuilt and here indeed it has been, and then some. Continue reading "Economist Lays Out The Next Step For The Fed" →

When The Bond Bubble Blows Up

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

Amazing isn’t it? It was only back in H2 2018 when everybody but you (because you are as smart as I think you are or because you read NFTRH or nftrh.com) and I was unbelievably bearish about the TREASURY BOND BEAR MARKET!!!

Today… not so much. The herd is absolutely pile driving bonds right now.

tlt bond

I know this all too well because while my SHY (cash equiv.) position is doing well it’s not anything like the above, and is basically – given relative position sizes – offsetting a position in this, which I am still holding with all the stubbornness of a pissed off contrarian. Continue reading "When The Bond Bubble Blows Up" →

You Have To Invite The Vampire Into Your House

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

A vampire needs to be invited in order to enter your house. So the story goes. But in this case, we are talking about the Macro house, with its nexus in the USA and its Central Bank.

You see, the Federal Reserve inflates money supplies as a matter of doing business, which is why I noted so strenuously in Q4 2018 that Jerome Powell’s then-hawkish stance in the face of a declining stock market made perfect sense… because the 30 year Treasury bond was not bullish; it was bearish and getting more so under the pressure of rising inflation expectations.

But now as we noted the other day the inflated Sub is losing pressure. As we noted before that Goldilocks is being threatened. Here are the updated ‘inflation gauges’ from that post, continuing to lose pressure.

Q4 2018

But in Q4 the Fed had a threat if its own to deal with as the repercussions of its previous inflationary operations could be exposed to the light of day by the breakout through the Continuum’s limiter if it were not arrested promptly. The orange arrow on the chart below shows the point of concern for the Fed. Continue reading "You Have To Invite The Vampire Into Your House" →

The Inflated Sub Is Losing Pressure

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

The charts are super interesting to look at. How quickly things turn, as if on a dime.

tnx

2018 featured a break above the Continuum’s limiter and folks, you and I were not the only ones who saw that and uttered “ruh roh!”; the Fed was well aware of the inflationary implication. Continue reading "The Inflated Sub Is Losing Pressure" →