Bonds

Bonds Articles

The Bank of Canada this morning announced a hike for the overnight rate by 0.25%.  The new overnight rate is still only 0.75%. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1.00% and the deposit rate is 0.50%. ...
The newest minutes from the June 22 to 23, 2010 FOMC meeting is a lowering of economic growth estimates from the Federal Reserve for the rest of 2010.  The market has already reflected this in the...
Maybe the markets felt directionless for most of Friday ahead of earnings season, but the trading action of this week might make some wonder if a Double-Dip Recession is less likely.  The economic...
Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), America’s only major automaker not in debt to taxpayers, is seeing its shares gain this morning after it paid off more than $4 billion in debt.  Citigroup also has chimed...
If you have watched Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), you know what has gone on.  These are technically Federal National Mortgage Association (NYSE: FNM) and Federal Home Loan...
As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee under Ben Bernanke has voted to leave the Fed Funds Rate unchanged at the Target of 0.00% to 0.25%.  The vote was 9 to 1 against a rate hike, again...
The day has come for Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM).  Freddie Mac has notified the New York Stock Exchange of its intent to delist its common stock from NYSE trading.  It is...
Fitch is generally considered third fiddle in a two-agency dominated game of debt ratings behind Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.  But a ‘timely’ downgrade out of Fitch on BP plc (NYSE:...
Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: ABK) was trying to have a good day yesterday, but it is one of those companies where almost all good news is met by more selling.  The news yesterday that helped...
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) closed lower today along with many technology companies, but there is something rather interesting worth noting.  This morning we covered a small esoteric...
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is selling $1.15 billion worth of convertible senior notes, but chances are that you won’t be able to participate in this offering even if you wanted to. The notes...
Claymore Securities has just launched several new investment grade corporate bond ETF products that are designed to allow investors to invest in a basket of bond maturities.  The Claymore...
Back in the liquidity bubble, corporate bond spreads were tight.  Very tight.  Sometimes as little as 50 or 75 basis points for those deemed a solid investment grade, and sometimes even tighter...
Bill Gross, the head investment officer of bond giant PIMCO and the most famous fixed-income investor in the world, dismissed Moody’s (NYSE: MCO) and S&P as deeply flawed arbiters of...
As you expected, no rate hike came from the two-day FOMC meeting today at 2:15 PM EST. The target Fed Funds Rate was kept at the same 0.00% to 0.25% that has been the case for over a year.  As far...