The U.S. Treasury may have had a successful 30-year Treasury Bond auction, but the Treasury budget deficit is alive and well. That means more deficits ahead. The Treasury’s budget deficit for the first half of fiscal 2014 is $413.26 billion. The good news is that this is about 31% lower than this time a year ago, and federal government revenue was up 10% to $1.321 trillion for the first half.
Thursday’s report was actually for the month of March and the level came to $36.89 billion in deficits in the month. This is down 65% from a year ago and is the lowest deficit in more than a decade, although this may be due to a push out of tax refunds that are generally paid in March.
Another interesting issue is that March’s average deficit has been in excess of $100 billion in the last five-year period and in the last 10-year period.
The monthly budget deficit reports rarely matter to financial markets, even if they should matter. Selling was excessive long before the Treasury data. To show just how bad things are on Thursday, the S&P 500 was down 25 points and the DJIA was down 170 points.
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