From the monthly archives:
Folks, the market is shouting - SCREAMING — that we are on a troublesome economic path. The tinkerers in Washington and Treasury are driving the dollar into the crapper. They’re putting Treasuries into the shredder. The mortgage markets just dislocated in a huge way. And gold is flying toward $1,000 an ounce.
Oh and don’t forget [...]
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The Treasury just held its much-anticipated 7-year Treasury note auction. The sale of $26 billion in 7-year notes was the third leg in this week’s debt sales, which also included 2-year and 5-year auctions. So how’d the auction go? The notes sold at a yield of 3.3%, compared with pre-auction talk of 3.263%. The bid-to-cover [...]
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The Mortgage Bankers Association released data on first quarter mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures this morning. This is what the numbers showed:
* The overall mortgage delinquency rate soared to 9.12% in Q1 2009 from 7.88% in Q4 2008 and 6.35% a year earlier. This is yet another record high for the delinquency rate (the MBA data [...]
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Watching the market action this morning, I can’t help but think the Federal Reserve is in a total Catch 22 situation. It can signal a plan to increase its purchases of Treasuries and mortgages to hold rates down. Indeed, speculation about just such a move has driven long bond futures up almost two points in [...]
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My call in December that long-term Treasuries were caught up in the “Biggest bubble of all” is looking right on target. The bonds simply can’t get out of their way. Long bond futures are down about 1 16/32 as I write, while 10-year Treasury Note yields have shot up by more than 10 basis points [...]
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We just got a look at April existing home sales figures. Here’s a recap of what they showed:
* Existing home sales rose 2.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.68 million units from 4.55 million in March. That was roughly in line with the forecast for a reading of 4.66 million and down 3.5% [...]
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The selling just keeps on washing over the long-term bond market. After a brief bounce in the wake of the 2-year note sale earlier this afternoon, bonds rolled over. Futures are now down 25/32 at 118 17/32. The yield on the 10-year Note has risen another 5 basis points to 3.5%. The dollar is still [...]
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The latest S&P/Case-Shiller figures just hit the tape, and they continue to show home prices heading south. The 20-city index dropped 18.7% year-over-year in March, ever-so-slightly worse than the 18.67% drop in February.
On a month-over-month basis, prices slipped 2.17%. That was ever-so-slightly better than the 2.21% monthly decline in February and the smallest monthly drop [...]
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American assets continue to be sold aggressively. The Dollar Index is down 59 basis points to 79.94. The long bond futures are off 25/32 (the day’s low). The 10-year Treasury Note yield is up just over 5 basis points to 3.42%. And gold is up more than $5 to around $960. When will someone in [...]
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Remember that catchy 80s song “Talk, Talk“? That’s what I think of when I read stories like this. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner keeps blathering about how he’s concerned about U.S. borrowing and how he will — somehow — figure out a way to bring down the deficit over time. But it’s all just that — [...]
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