Bonds

Bonds Articles

The FOMC decision on interest rates on Wednesday is going to be a rather unique one.  Ben Bernanke cannot really lower rates but it can use its balance sheet that holds so many Treasury and other...
Debt and credit rating agencies made a number of changes yesterday, led by the downgrade of Italian sovereign debt by Standard & Poor’s. The agencies also issued changes to debt ratings for the...
Currency traders really don’t like governments to intervene in the global currency market. Such moves tilt the playing field in unexpected ways that can cause traders to unwind positions that would...
The 30-Year Treasury auction, the so-called Long Bond, had a strong participation for what is technically a 29-year and 11-month bond.  The participation rate was strong enough that this still shows...
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) is making good on a promise it made earlier this year: it is paying back Warren Buffett.  An SEC filing after the closing bell shows that GE mailed to Berkshire...
Bill Gross, who manages the world’s largest bond fund, told the Financial Times and almost anyone else who would listen: “Do I wish I had more Treasuries? Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. … I get...
Germany is supposed to be immune to losing its “AAA” rating.  When we covered “The Nations Which Could Lose Their AAA Ratings” there was no mention of Germany.  That was before the...
Some companies just can’t win for losing. particularly when they are tied to the financial sector at the hip and have major trading exposure to banks in America and Europe.  When we saw news that...
So much for hope… Seeing a 400 point drop in the DJIA all over again is one thing, but get this: THE TEN-YEAR TREASURY YIELD JUST WENT BACK UNDER 2.00%.  Dow Jones ran a headline that this is a...
The first re-review by the ratings agencies is now out on The United States sovereign credit rating after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the “AAA” sovereign rating.  Fitch has just...
It was once upon a time that the ratings agencies used to have Warren Buffett’s own company of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) as a “AAA” rating.  It was one of the few, but the ills of...
The Treasury has just held a $24 billion 10-Year Treasury Note auction that seems almost baffling.  The auction high rate was 2.14% and the Treasury received $77,38 billion in bids.  Primary...
For the second week in a row, the number of US mortgage applications rose, but the vast majority of the action came in refinancing, not new purchases. This spells continuing pressure on new home...
Standard & Poor’s may have done the inevitable move of a U.S. credit ratings downgrade and it may have followed with the downgrade of the insurance companies and with many government agencies...
The S&P downgrade of the United States may have the investment community in a fuss, but many investors saw this coming long before.  To say that investors will not see a knee-jerk reaction in...