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Meaning of US 10 year at 1.98%

The US 10 year 52 week high was 2.5% - now it is 1.98% with a unemployment rate at 5.1% and the Fed talking about a raise soon.

So what is that low rate telling us?

Comments

  • I think Crash's post provides a snap shot of some of the concerns about weakness in the economy that are reflected in today's 10 year rate...

    Crash's Post
  • davfor said:

    I think Crash's post provides a snap shot of some of the concerns about weakness in the economy that are reflected in today's 10 year rate...

    Crash's Post

    Thank's I didn't see that. I think a bear market will also put a crimp in the Fed's plans.
  • edited October 2015
    What's the 10-year telling us? Very little I suspect. But a little ...

    It says,

    1. Trend persistency is alive and well (borrowing one of Junkster's phrases).

    2. There's an aging population (pushing people into annuities and bond investments viewed as "safe").

    3. There's fiscal uncertainty in the U.S. (the battle over the budget and a bunch of fruit-cakes running for President).

    4. There's a slowdown in China (Surprise! Economies don't always grow exponentially and markets sometimes correct.)

    That should cover it.

    Crash's link is on Jeff Gundlach's forebodings about a rate hike (around the time of the last FOMC meeting). Fair enough. But I wouldn't read a tremendous amount into it. Economists seem about equally divided on the question. And, Gundlach does have a dog in the fight - so to speak.

    http://news.investors.com/100915-775007-compounding-interest-and-investment-returns-to-help-your-kids.htm
  • edited October 2015
    Central banks are still concerned with the nasty "deflation". Euroland just went negative for "inflation" from a report a few days ago.........correct me if I am wrong. South Korea reported today a +.6% inflation rate.
    Lets see/think............Norway just cut rates again, yes? India did a rate cut the first part of this week, I recall. Although India is benefiting muchly from inexpensive crude pricing.

    As a bond investor over the years, I remain concerned about the amount of issuance in high yield, corp. and gov't. bonds. HY in the energy sector is already getting wacked, the M&A issues bonds every which way on the cheap in order to buy "something", just "anything". And centrals banks worldwide have so many issues flowing around at really low yields............ I suspect the words "what the hell we gonna do when no one wants these anymore?" have been spoken at more than one meeting.

    The intra-day low yield on the 10 year was 1.91%.

    Holy crap........just a very large boat load of all flavors of bonds floating about.

    To repeat, in spite of having been a bond person for a number of years; I really don't like the fast forward picture.

    Hang in there.
    Catch
  • "I actually don’t know of anything other than U3 [the official unemployment rate] that would make you want to tighten. All the price indicators (including wages) scream weakness, as do all the other labor market indicators. If we didn’t have the unemployment number, nobody would see a reason to hike.”-Paul Krugman, Econ professor, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Nobelist.

    Wow! I'm worried that I agree with this guy. Then again he had a 50/50 chance of being correct.
  • ECRI is a good, thorough source on econ cycles. Their indicators have been trending down for a while now.

    ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan will on Bloomberg TV/Radio tomorrow (Monday) morning. He does great interviews.
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