From the category archives:
The Treasury Department just released the details of its next round of debt auctions. It looks like we’ll get $37 billion in 3-year notes on Tuesday, $23 billion in 10-year notes on Wednesday and $15 billion in 30-year bonds on Thursday. Treasury also admitted that auction sizes will rise “gradually” in the medium term, and [...]
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What a day! The bond market is getting crushed and the dollar is falling off a cliff thanks to strong global economic data. The CLSA China Purchasing Managers’ Index got things going overnight when it rose to 52.8 in July from 51.8 in June. That’s the highest reading in a year. Then a few minutes [...]
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Yesterday’s record 2-year Treasury Note auction went off fairly well. Today’s 5-year auction? Not so much. The Treasury tried to sell a record $39 billion of notes. Pre-auction talk was for the notes to sell at a yield of 2.635%. Instead, they went off at 2.689%, more than 5 basis points higher. The bid-to-cover ratio [...]
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Interesting timing, to say the least. As “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke heads to the Hill for a couple days of grilling, the Wall Street Journal is publishing an op-ed from the Fed Chairman about “exit strategies.” Bernanke tries to lay out the case that the Fed will pull back on all its extraordinary accommodation when and [...]
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Mortgage applications dropped sharply in the week of June 26. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s application index (chart above) plunged 18.9% to 444.8, the lowest level since late November. The refinance index tanked 30%, while the purchase index slipped 4.5%. This occurred despite the fact mortgage rates dropped for the third week (to 5.34% from a [...]
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The Federal Open Market Committee left its interest rate target unchanged at 0% to 0.25%. Also, the Fed left its targets for purchases of Treasury debt, GSE debt, and mortgage backed securities unchanged. The complete statement is as follows:
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the pace of economic [...]
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The 5-year Treasury Note auction (of $37 billion in securities) just wrapped up and it was pretty good. The notes sold at a yield of 2.7%, compared with pre-auction talk of 2.724%. Indirect bidding was strong at 62.8%, and the bid-to-cover ratio came in at 2.58. Those were the highest figures since December 2004 and [...]
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The Treasury Department just announced how much debt it’s going to sell next week. Get a load of these figures: $61 billion in T-bills. $40 billion of 2-year T-notes. $37 billion of 5-year Notes. And $27 billion of 7-year notes. That’s good for a record $165 billion of debt, the most sold in any week [...]
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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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