As a general rule, it is wise to avoid debates on emotionally charged topics.

I made the below chart for a post earlier, and it got some Twitter banter going, so I thought it would be worth a followup focusing on the chart itself.

At TheStreet.com, Jeff Nielsen has a very conspiratorial post essentially arguing that the US Treasury market is an epic fraud, and that it’s only because Bernanke is printing money like crazy that yields on US debt are so low, and that the entire thing is a scam.

[credit provider=”Wikimedia Commons” url=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FF232.jpg”] SocGen’s house view as explained by its economist Michala Marcussen is that the Federal Reserve will announce $600bn of new asset purchases today at the FOMC meeting, split 40 per cent to 60 per cent between mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and US Treasuries.SocGen’s rates strategy team assigns […]

[credit provider=”(Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images) “] Bank of America’s top strategists and economists put together forecasts on the prices for stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies depending on how the Greek elections shape up on Sunday night.The three scenarios they examine for each asset class include:

Marc Faber of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom report appeared on Bloomberg T.V. recently, discussing the current bull market around U.S. Treasuries.

[credit provider=”Wikimedia Commons” url=”http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vorh%C3%A4ngeschloss_und_Rost.jpg”] We’ve hit on this meme a number of times, but it continues to go around, so we’ll do it againDoug Kass is the latest to argue that the Treasury needs to issue a lot more longer-dated debt to, as he puts it, “Lock in low rates […]

A commonly stated remark over the past 10 years has been “rates have nowhere to go but up.”

[credit provider=”Wikimedia Commons” url=”http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mountrushmore.jpg”] The current title on our CHART OF THE DAY today is simply 1.53760 per cent, which represents the current yield on a U.S. 10-year Treasury.For folks in the financial industry, that number is “mesmerizing,” but we also recognise that a huge swath of the population has […]

ORIGINAL POST: This is all you need to know.

All we can do is watch the 10 year bond yield grind lower and lower.

Fantastic long-term chart here from @fullcarry on Twitter showing 10-year bond futures going back a few decades.

[credit provider=”Flickr/Marjan Krebelj” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikio/3899114449/sizes/z/in/photostream/”] In general, it’s our stance that Chinese ownership of US Treasuries is overblown as an issue to be interested/concerned about.People make a big deal of undulations in the level of UST holdings by Beijing, and some people are mistakenly under the belief that they have us […]

[credit provider=”Daniel Goodman / Business Insider”] The Treasury had a heavy calendar this week, but the new supply won’t settle until May 15. After Tuesday, Treasury supply will not pressure the market until the end of month settlement of notes and bonds. But the market has other problems and they […]

Hugh Hendry, founder of Eclectica Asset Management, lays out a dangerous future for the global hedge fund industry in his latest op-ed for the Financial Times—they’re all going the way of bananas.

[credit provider=”Bloomberg TV” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/”] Tobias Levkovich, Citi’s top U.S. Equity Strategist, is concerned earnings expectations for the second half of 2012 are too hopeful.However, he still think stocks are much more attractive than bonds.

Barron’s is out with a new poll of portfolio managers, asking them their outlooks for the market and the economy.

[credit provider=”Bloomberg TV” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/”] U.S. government bonds have seen their yields suppressed by Federal Reserve purchases. Veteran bond investor Dan Fuss of Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, who has previously said that he likes corporate bonds and stocks relative to treasuries, was on Bloomberg TV saying he thinks treasuries are priced way […]

A phrase you’ll sometimes read on these pages is “idiot-maker”, as in the “idiot-maker rally”, which is our term to describe this massive bull run we’ve been on since March, 2009, during which tons of smart people have called for its premature death.

“If the end of the world happens, I want to have long-(dated) Treasuries, canned green peas, and small firearms.”

Today would normally be a very quiet day, as most markets are closed for Good Friday.

[credit provider=”Bloomberg Television” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/video/88967695/”] This should be great.Investing geniuses Bill Miller (Legg Mason) and Paul McCulley (formerly of PIMCO) are going to be on Consuelo Mack WealthTrack.

PIMCO’s Bill Gross told CNBC that chatter over the Federal Reserve’s comments on further easing yesterday were “much ado about nothing or maybe much ado about a little,” downplaying risks that the Fed will not embark on another round of quantitative easing.

Whitney Tilson’s T2 Partners fund had a pretty outstanding first quarter, gaining 23.6%.

From UBS economist Larry Hatheway:

[credit provider=”AP Images”] One of the most stunning new trends in the financial markets has been the precipitous sell-off in Treasury securities.  This is also known as the risk-off trade.But where is the risk being put on?

From Dan Greenhaus at BTIG:

The story of the week, as we just noted, was in the Treasury market, where finally yields started to shoot up a bit.

That’s the story of this past week.

Komal Sri-Kumar, Chief Global Strategist and Group Managing Director for TCW, appeared on CNBC yesterday with a sharp warning against the excitement being generated in the markets right now—and particularly against yesterday’s sudden sell-off in Treasuries.

Let’s start this post with a chart we’ve probably run about 20 times this year.

From a market standpoint, this is undoubtedly the story of the day.

Did you like Treasuries when yields were at 2.00?

All year, people have been puzzling over one big question: Why are people so hungry for Treasuries, causing yields to stay so low?

Earlier today, Black Swan author Nassim Taleb’s appeared on CNBC.  His key takeaway quote: “I own stocks because I don’t trust Treasury bond.”  This got the financial bloggers all a-twitter

On CNBC just now, Jim Cramer asked why Tim Geithner doesn’t just refinance America’s debt at these super-cheap long-term rates.

This is a chart we’ve shown over, and over, and over again this year.

In a recent letter, Scott Minerd of Guggenheim Partners argues that thanks to the world’s central banks, the economy — at least in the US — has entered a self-sustaining recovery, and that domestic investments will continue to do well.

The US Treasury market has been in a constant bull market for over 30 years now, defying thousands of sceptics along the away. In the last few years the rally has been particularly intense, as myriad investors have proclaimed that there’s no way rates could go lower… and yet they […]

[credit provider=”Bloomberg” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83013506/”] Gary Shilling’s latest Insights Newsletter contains an updated list of his asset allocation.  Shilling is a superb macro analyst.  I thought you might find his positioning and insights useful when considering the current environment: Treasury bonds (favourable) – Treasurys have rallied as a safe haven in a sea […]

JP Morgan recently released their macro view of the markets and the economy and it provides a useful overview of the current environment and how they’re positioned.  They are expecting continued asset reflation in risk assets, but are bearish on bonds and commodities:

[credit provider=”www.shorpy.com” url=”http://www.shorpy.com/node/12389″] This is a Guest Post by long time TAE regular, El Gallinazo.A subject that commonly comes up in TAE is what to do with your savings if you have too much to stuff in “that creative place” that Nicole often refers to. And what she suggests is […]

The NYT’s Binyamin Appelbaum takes a tour through the mysterious world of ultra-low interest rates, observing, for example, that the US government had the same interest payment outlays in 2011 as it did in 2006, despite the fact that the national debt had doubled during this time.

The market anomaly of the year is without a doubt the growing gap between stocks and Treasury yields.

Let’s revisit a chart you should have been a bajillion times this year.

We’ve run this chart several times this year, and it still holds.

From ZeroHedge, a look at Chinese holdings of US Treasuries…

In a preview of his upcoming annual shareholders letter, Warren Buffett writes:

Bernanke’s testimony to the House last week and to the Senate yesterday held no surprises. Ben has promised to maintain monetary policy at DEFCON 4 levels for as far into the future as we can see. The prepared remarks were identical for both presentations. I reviewed Bernanke’s 10/4/2011 testimony before […]

We’ve spent a lot of time this year discussing this chart.

[credit provider=”sidknee23 via Flickr” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidknee23/3626226624/in/photostream/”] A recent Reuters article had the headline, “Treasury May Let Investors Pay to Lend to US.” Wait a minute, what? Apparently the Treasury is “looking closely at allowing negative-yield auctions.” When I read this I literally couldn’t believe it. The really amazing thing is this […]

We’ve been talking a lot about this chart this year.

[credit provider=”coljay72″ url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/coljay72/2399545998/sizes/m/in/photostream/”] We went around the world last week. We wish we could say we learned something. But modern travel has been standardized…and culture and technology have been “globalized”…so that the more you travel the more you feel you never left home.”How was your trip around the world?” asked […]

This year we’ve been talking about two things: The easing of the crisis in Europe and the persistently low yields on US Treasuries.

We’ve been talking about this conundrum for a while: Why have stocks been doing well, against a backdrop of improving macro data, while US Treasuries have seen so little yield lift?

[credit provider=”Bloomberg Television” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/video/84596910/”] Marc Faber, the brains behind the Gloom, Boom and Doom report thinks Treasuries are in a bubble.This is actually a call he has been making since 2009.  And now he owes economist David Rosenberg a bottle of Cutty Sark because Treasuries ended up rallying, even after […]

It’s time for a quick look at how every major asset class stacks up against each other.

Theme of the year on full display again today.

[credit provider=”flickr: SAN_DRINO” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/san_drino/1454922072/”] It’s a theme we’ve been talking about a lot: Here, here, here, and here for example.What explains the divorce between risk assets and Treasuries?

[credit provider=”Bloomberg” url=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/belski-says-oppenheimer-sees-sandp-at-1475-by-end-of-2012/2011/09/08/gIQAD9D7BK_video.html”] Lately, there’s been an interesting trend developing in the markets:  Treasury yields have been falling, while stock prices have moved sideways or up.In other words, the prices of risky assets have held up, while the prices of risk-free assets haven’t seen an offsetting sell-off.

Quick heads up here.

This is timely!

[credit provider=”Bloomberg TV”] Bill Gross famously missed much of the Treasury rally in 2011, but lately he’s been re-cranking up his bets on US debt.In an interview with Bloomberg TV, the PIMCO manager explained why he’s a bull right now:

Yale professor and economist famously called two of the biggest bubbles of all time: the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble.  Both times, he published an edition of his book Irrational Exuberance, which described and predicted each respective bubble.

Richard Bernstein,, the former Chief Investment Strategist of Merrill Lynch, is out with his 2012 outlook, which includes his five favourite investment themes.  One of those themes: “Positions in treasuries to maintain portfolio diversification.”

[credit provider=”Bloomberg TV” url=”http://www.bloomberg.com/video/80286516/”] Everyone remembers when Bill Gross started dumping Treasuries and eventually went short.  And no one wants to forget that more than Bill Gross (see his mea culpa).Anyways, Bill Gross has since gone long Treasuries in his PIMCO Total Return Fund.

This week, world attention finally shifted away from debt problems in Europe to the unresolved and worsening debt crisis here in the United States. The Congressional Super Committee, which had been created over the summer by the House and Senate to avoid responsibility for the debt crisis, chose to avoid […]

Economist Nouriel Roubini had some choice words for U.S. treasuries and the dollar this morning.

At present we are in the early stages of the latest Federal Reserve intervention, Operation Twist, which was officially announced on September 21 after several days of rumours. We’ve now seen several bouts of aggressive Fed attempts to manage the economy following the collapse of the two Bear Stearns hedge […]

The Federal Reserve reports its custody holdings for foreign central banks on a weekly average basis and on a Wednesday-to-Wednesday basis.  The data is reported every Thursday.  In this space I have been tracking a sustained decline in these holdings in recent weeks.   It now looks like the trend […]

Citi’s Todd Elmer makes an interesting observation looking at the latest TIC data .

Not surprisingly, the fact that the TIC report from the US Treasury shows that China has reduced its holding of US Treasury securities has predictably led to Chinese Media spinning the story to look like China and other countries are losing confidence in the United States of America.  This article […]

Note from dshort: The October rally in equities (the S&P 500 is up 8.23%) has been matched by the selloff in the 10-year note. The yield closed the week at 2.26, up 54 basis points from its all-time closing low of 1.72 on September 22.

We’ve been talking over the last few days about Bill Gross’ big about-face. He’s now betting heavy on interest rates going much lower.

[credit provider=”Bloomberg Television”] Funny, just yesterday afternoon we pointed out the irony of nobody caring about the fact that Bill Gross had loaded up the boat on the long end of the yield curve, a gamble that obviously meant one thing: He sees no growth or inflation ahead — essentially […]

Really stretched.  The bottom histogram is the percentage which the 10y yield deviates from its 10y (linear regression) trend.

The national average mortgage rate fell below 4% for the first time ever.

This summer we explained why economists hate the Wall Street Journal editorial page— because so much tripe is printed on it. This weekend we have a shining new example.

If you want to know what happened in Q3, it was basically this:

[credit provider=”AP Photo/Jason Redmond”] $35 billion in two-year treasuries sold to fervent demand today, sending yields down to 0.249% from a 0.251% forecast.Bidders tendered nearly $132 billion in offers for the purchase — a level not seen since September 2010 — outstripping availability by more than 375%. The resilient purchasing […]

Investors betting U.S. government debt due in 10 years or more have done well.  In fact, they haven’t done done this well since 1995, Bloomberg reports. This despite concerns from lawmakers and economists alike that Bernanke’s easing policies would lead to the extreme devaluation of the dollar and uncontrollable inflation.

Most Fed watchers had anticipated the announcement of Operation Twist for months. Treasury traders were on board, causing long-term Treasury rates to fall.  As a result, many believed the twist was priced in.

You are being lied to. There is currently more than sufficient evidence that indicates that we are either in, or about to be in, a recession.  The last time I made that statement was in December of 2007.   In December of 2008 the National Bureau of Economic Research stated that […]

Many experts are expecting the Federal Reserve to soon unveil “Operation Twist,” a plan to purchase long-term Treasury securities, and finance those purchases by shorting short-term Treasuries.

For those wondering why David Tepper will be strangely missing from CNBC for his annual pre-QE cheerleading appearance, we now have the answer. As Institutional Investor reports, the Appalloosa head man, who was long everything but mostly financials in the form of BofA and Citi last year, and managed to […]

[credit provider=”flickr” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/dweekly/2850001074/”] Chinese corporate bonds fell 1.5% in August, the most since 2008, reports Shanghai Daily.On average, yields Chinese companies pay to borrow in dollars reached a 14-month high of 5.69 per cent, 35 basis points more than it was at the start of August, shows an HSBC index. […]

Note from dshort: The bond market ended the week with a strong response to the grim employment report heading into the labour Day weekend. The yield on 10-year note finished the day at an all-time closing low of 2.02%.

[credit provider=”AP Images” url=”http://www.apimages.com”] Does Bill Gross wish he owned more Treasuries right now?

Forget about the fiscal situation for a moment.  Forget ratings, forget Budget Deficits.  Here’s the real risk that investors need to worry about. It isn’t default.  Its rising rates. 

PIMCO who specialises in Bonds, having the largest bond fund in the world could not have been more wrong about an asset class, which is surprising considering their experience in this sector. Bill Gross’s official declaration that his firm was shorting the US Treasury Market on April 11th of this […]

Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs criticised President Barack Obama for taking a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard this week as the global markets are in turmoil.

Good morning. Here’s the news:

[credit provider=”Wikimedia Commons” url=”http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Flags.JPG”] The huge crash we’re seeing today is prompting, once again, a huge flight into US Treasuries.For the first time ever, the yield on the 10-year is below 2%.

Since the S&P downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, stocks swung 4% on four consecutive days last week, a fairly rare event in stock market history.

[credit provider=”Flickr: U.S. Army” url=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/5374759561/”] Is the PBoC going to stop buying USG bonds? Once again we are hearing very worried noises from various sectors about the possibility of a reduction in Chinese purchases of USG bonds. Here is what an article the South China Morning Post said:China will press […]

Treasury bond yields have plunged recently which may seem odd since long-term Treasuries were famously downgraded by Standard & Poor’s. So what’s driving the bond rally?

Yesterday the President spoke and the markets tanked.

Today, a banker rented a plane carrying a banner with a statement insulting the S&P, and had it fly by its office.

President Barack Obama canceled his public schedule today as criticism mounts over his administration’s slow response to the S&P downgrade and market slump.

[credit provider=”C-Span”] UPDATE: Report: Obama To View Return Of Remains Of Americans Killed In Afghanistan TodayOriginal: The White House just announced that all public events have been cancelled today, including a much-publicized appearance by President Barack Obama at a company in Springfield, VA to highlight new fuel efficiency standards.