Saturday, June 06, 2009

Bond Vigilantes Take over in the Long End (Graph)


30 Year Bond Infaltion Vigilantes Take Over (Graph)

If you were around during the 1980s you know all about the bond vigilantes. When inflation is on the horizon they take over in the long end of the Treasury market.

The 30 year chart above shows that institutional investors are worried about the current policies of the Federal Reserve and Treasury. When this occurs, a interest rate risk premium gets built into the bond. In other words, investors want a bigger cushion to accept the risk of investing in long term Treasury Bonds.

These interest rates look high in comparison to recent history. However, if you are old enough you will remember when the long bond traded above 15 percent. Right now, if you told someone you believed that could happen again, they would tell you -- you are nuts.

They told me I was nuts when I wrote about fire not smoke, when the S and P 500 was in the 1250 area. Nobody thought we could see the stock market fall in half from those levels.

Over the next few years, talk about a downgrade of U.S. debt is going to increase. It appears right now that the downgrade is inevitable. However, it is probably two to four years in the future. The market will discount the downgrade before it happens.

Expect 30 year Treasury bond yields to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. Constant Treasury intervention to try and hold down long term interest rates will fail.

Remember when the Treasury intervened in the Gold market over and over to try and hold prices down?
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Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 500 articles with more than 11,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments.


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2 comments:

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  2. Bob, Treasury prices have already fallen dramatically. Doesn't a trader/investor have to worry about selling into the hole? What would you suggest as a strategy for someone looking to initiate a position in CME Ten Year Note futures?

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