Three prominent FOMC members spoke in the past week, and all three adopted a hawkish tone. Might they be trying to ready the markets for a rate hike in the September 20-21 meeting? With the U.S. presidential election scheduled for … Continued
Negative interest rates have been in the headlines for a while now. Since Janet Yellen’s, Fed chair, Congressional testimony last week, it has been doing so with increasing frequency. Does the Fed even have the legal authority to use negative … Continued
If a chart gets retweeted 86 times, it is safe to say that the topic in question has touched a nerve in Twitter finance. The chart above had that distinction. The topic it highlighted thus deserves a post. So here … Continued
Stanley Fischer, Federal Reserve vice chair, last week stated that U.S. inflation should rebound next year. As things stand now, government data do not show much inflation. In September, consumer prices, measured by the consumer price index, were unchanged in … Continued
The Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting today, the significance of which cannot be stressed enough. A lot is riding on this. After this meeting, there will be two more left this year – one late October and … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of September 1, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The IMF is at it again. This week, it reiterated its stance that advanced economies should maintain accommodative monetary policies. By that it … Continued
In the past five weeks, all things in the world of bonds have done a lot of running… but on the treadmill. The popular bond ETF, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), is essentially unchanged during that time … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of May 19, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The April FOMC minutes for all intents and purposes put a nail in the coffin of June rate-hike odds. At the March meeting, … Continued
Last six years, U.S. high-yield bond issuance of $1.6tn This week, several Fed officials signal imminent rate hike this year Junk bonds – popular risk-on vehicle – not likely to take kindly to end of ZIRP A week ago, HYG, … Continued