There is something fishy happening in the bond market these days. Sentiment is hitting historic bearish extremes as US Interest Rates have fallen over the past month. This to me seems like a “too little too late” sort of thing from those who missed the bond sell-off that began last summer. If you recall, we had been ultra-bearish bonds (bullish rates) since the middle of the summer (see: August 3, 2016). That worked great and all of our targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since December, we’ve been approaching the bond market from the long side and sentiment these days is reiterating why we would still rather err on the bullish side moving forward. [Read more…]
[Premium] US Treasury Bonds Start The Year On Fire!
US Treasury Bonds have been a market that we’ve been watching very closely over the past couple of months. Remember this had been a favorite short of mine since the Summer, but all of our downside targets were hit in the 4th quarter. Since then, it has no longer been a short, and we’ve been waiting for it to set up to be a long for a mean reversion. Here is what is now going on this week: [Read more…]
[Chart Of The Week] Banks And REITs Are Pointing To Higher Rates in 2017
I love technical analysis. I really do. There’s no question that finding a nice chart brings a great amount of joy to my life. Today I want to share with you what I think is one of the most important developments to occur over the past couple of months. Interest rates have been ripping higher, yes we know this. But to me it’s what is happening in Banks and Real Estate Investment Trusts that continues to grab my attention. These groups of stocks are doing the exact opposite today that they were doing at the beginning of 2016, when I was pounding the table about rates going a lot lower.
Interest rates have exploded higher into year-end from a low near 1.37% on the 10-year yield up to over 2.6%. But one of the big reasons that had me so bullish rates since July was that while the 10-year was making lower lows into the summer, the ratio between Regional Banks and REITs held the early 2015 low and started to rally: [Read more…]
[Chart Of The Week] Inflationary Forces Point To Higher Rates
Throughout the second half of 2016 I’ve remained in the camp that interest rates are going higher and that bonds are a fade. The action into 4th of July weekend originally put me in that camp and I continue to believe that, bigger picture, this is the underlying trend that we need to respect. The catalyst here, in many cases, is becoming more and more clear with each passing day. Forget the economy and the stock market, inflationary forces are moving in sync with the bond market suggesting a very high correlation between the inflation trade and higher rates.
Let’s break this down using math and blatantly ignore anything the federal reserve has to say. Listening to them has been a time waster and money loser for years. I don’t expect this trend to change any time soon. I’m sure they are nice people, but from a portfolio construction perspective, they offer absolutely zero value, and some might argue that listening to the fed is actually detrimental to a sound investing plan. I agree with both the latter and the former: that noise is toxic on all accounts. [Read more…]
The World’s Most Interesting Charts: U.S. Interest Rates
You guys who have followed my work over the years know how many charts I look at on a daily and weekly basis. Believe it or not, it’s probably even more than you think. Some things pique my interest more than others, of course, but it’s the collective weight of the evidence that allows me to formulate a thesis given all of the available information. The specifics include price and sentiment data from stock, bond, commodity and forex markets around the world, most represented visually in chart form.
Sometimes there is a specific scenario in a given market that can impact the direction of the price of a lot of different assets around the world. Today, what I see in US Treasury Bonds is what I find to be the most interesting trade in the world. What is happening in this market? Is this a top in bonds and bottom in rates? Is this multi-decade uptrend in bonds finally coming to an end? It’s hard to imagine considering you need to be older than 60 to remember a structural bear market in bonds during your wall street career. [Read more…]
[Chart Of The Week] The Bullish Island Reversal In U.S. Interest Rates
Over the last few years, all we’ve heard from the financial media and economists are how we’re in a “rising rate environment” and interest rates are going up. They keep averaging down on their irresponsible calls because they can. They have no skin in the game. They don’t care about making money in the market. The media wants to sell ads and who knows what economists are thinking. As the great Warren Buffett said last year, “Any company who has an economist has one employee too many”.
Meanwhile U.S. 30-year yields hit new lows in July proving all of their forecasts to be incorrect (shocking I know). And there is probably a good reason for that. They obsess over what the federal reserve people are saying, and blatantly ignore price action. Rather than focusing on what pays, they instead choose to focus on gossip from a group of people who never stop talking, literally.
U.S. Treasury Bonds have been a short for months (see here), but do we press these shorts or take profits? Today we’re looking at what I think is an extremely powerful development over the past week: [Read more…]
This Chart Has Suggested Selling Bonds Since June
We don’t have to make things complicated guys. We don’t get paid to tell stories and make up reasons for why the market is moving during the day. We are market participants. We are the 99.99% of people in the world who are just here to try and make a profit. We don’t have to put together a pitch, or a sexy headline, or ask our boss for permission to do things. We just want to make a buck when the market moves. That’s it.
So while all those people out there pretending to be mother goose are making up stories about the fed and inflation and all sorts of noise, we prefer to focus on price, which is literally the only thing that will ever pay anyone in this business. Today we are looking at the chart that has suggested since June that selling Treasury Bonds was the right move, and therefore interest rates would rise. [Read more…]
Bonds Are Confirming The Risk Appetite For Stocks
With all of the major U.S. Stock Market Indexes hitting all-time highs, I think it’s important to see if the bond market is telling a similar story. Are bonds confirming the risk appetite we’re seeing towards stocks or is there a divergence? Based on my work, bonds suggest there is plenty of risk appetite out there globally and therefore stocks should continue higher. [Read more…]