Recently I went over how to follow Treasury auctions by going to the Bloomberg site's calendar. Yesterday the Treasury auctioned the 30-year Treasury, and it didn't go well. Bloomberg reported:
"Coverage of 2.49 was soft for today's $13 billion reopening of the August 3.875 percent 30-year bond. The auction shows a larger than usual two-basis-point tail, stopping out at 3.852 percent vs. a 1:00 p.m. ET bid of 3.834. Buyside interest was soft with dealers taking down an outsized 59 percent of the auction, more than 10 points above average. Demand for Treasuries is slipping following the results which wind up a heavy week of uneven auctions. "
Some commentators are saying that the Chinese protested and didn't participate because of a report that may declare them a "currency manipulator" was delayed.
These are the kinds of events that change market sentiment and are worth following. Of course, in the background, the nev---ending circus in the nation's mortgage market goes on--this time with possible serious property rights violations.
This reminds me of e.e. cummings and "everything damned but the circus" which always gets me to smile in crazy situations.
Sooner or later rational people will stop locking in their money at 2.5% for 10 years or 3.5% for 30 years. That is a lot of inflation risk to assume. Odds are the real return on their investments will be near 0 or below 0.
ReplyDeleteA big mistake investors make is they look in the rear view mirror. 10 years ago the place to be was bonds. They piled into stocks. Now its probably flipped around.
ReplyDeleteThe behavioralists tells us that risk tolerance is driven by recent experience. 2008 is still having a big impact!