Bonds, bonds, bonds… United States Government bonds ARE the safest investment in the world besides cash. Right? They are aren’t they? I mean they are backed by the taxing power of the United States Government so they have to be. Well, sure you will get your money back at a measly 2.x% these days. Isn’t that below the rate of inflation you ask… why yes it is. T-bills are paying tenths of a percentage so you choose. Besides stocks and commodites have cost many a small fortune so investing in bonds is a wise decision. Right?
There is much talk about a bond bubble, and I’ve been watching bond prices and their rates take off recently and also have a nice correction. Generally I watch $TNX, which is the 10-year government bond yield. Remember bond yields move inversley to their prices. So, if yields go down then prices go up and vice versa.
So, we have seen equity and commodity prices collapse, housing prices, and while that was occuring treasury bond prices have taken off. This MUST be a bubble right? Perhaps, but you have to take into account who buys and sells bonds. We have the individual investor, which makes up a small group. The major purchasers of bonds are large institutions and governments. For institutions let’s look at the money market industry. They must hold a number of bonds based on their funds requirements. For governments they buy and sell bonds all the time. They sell them to raise money and other governments or institutions buy them for a “safe” return.
As a last resort the Federal Reserve will purchase bonds directly, thus monetizing debt (PRINTING MONEY), thus keeping bond prices high and yields low. Therefore bonds aren’t really controlled by investors as we like to think, but much larger fish in the sea.
So, what might we see when the world loses faith in the bond markets? Auctions will be devoid of foreign buyers signaling that foreign demand has dried up. This will spark the necesitated increase in interst rate as an incentive for others to borrow. Simultaneously we might see a flee from bonds as investors are concerned about their future safety.
If you look at the news you will see exports are way down from exporting countries, which means that importing coutries aren’t importing anywhere near previous levels. Welcome to a major recession, yes there are grumblings of this being a depresssion. I supose it depends on your viewpoint. Now what happens when these net exporting countries decide to stop buying our debt because they have their own problems at home and have to use their saving? They will no longer be purchasing our debt, which will make it more and more difficult for the USA to spend, and service existing debt. Being that most of our debt is short term as the interest rate rises so do the debt servicing costs. As these costs rise, tax income decreases then we are stuck with either printing more money (the short and easy “solution”), we cut back on gov’t services, or a combination of both.
Watch out for rising interest rates and a falling dollar. So far we have neither, but once we do this will signal a shift from the US Dollar as secure to the US dollar as a high risk. Expect other currencies in better situtations than us to see their currencies gain value, while the major winners will be commodities and gold.
