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Hmm... Something Interesting & Sweet is Brewing in T-Bond MarketIEF is a longer maturity, longer duration play on the US Intermediate Treasury segment. The fund focuses on Treasury notes expiring 7-10 years from now, which have significantly higher yield and interest rate sensitivity than the notes that make up our broader 1-10 year benchmark. IEF`s average YTM is significantly higher than US-T Aggregated benchmark's. Of course, the higher yield comes with significantly higher sensitivity to changes in rates, particularly those at the longer end of the yield curve (10-year key rate duration). The fund changed its index from the Barclays US Treasury Bond 7-10 Year Term Index to the ICE US Treasury 7-10 Year Bond Index on March 31, 2016. This change created no significant change in exposure. IEF's narrow focus and concentrated portfolio have been popular, so the fund is stable and easy to trade. The main technical graph represents IEF' Total return (div-adjusted) format, and indicates on developing H&S structure, as US Federal Reserve tight monetary policy seems is near to ease.
NASDAQ:IEF
by Pandorra
🎲 Interest Rates. To Cut, or not to Cut. That is the questionJamie Dimon Sees ‘Lot of Inflationary Forces in Front of Us’, as in recent interview to Bloomberg JPMorgan CEO has warned for months that rates could stay high. Jamie Dimon said he’s still more worried about inflation than markets appear to be. The JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said significant price pressures continue to influence the US economy and may mean interest rates will be higher for longer than many investors are expecting. He cited costs linked to the green economy, re-militarization, infrastructure spending, trade disputes and large fiscal deficits. “There are a lot of inflationary forces in front of us,” Dimon said in an interview on Bloomberg Television Thursday. “The underlying inflation may not go away the way people expect it to.” The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 closed at record highs Wednesday amid optimism over monetary policy easing after a measure of underlying US inflation cooled in April for the first time in six months. Dimon said that markets have been healthy for a while, but that doesn’t necessarily predict the future. “If you have higher rates and — God forbid — stagflation, you will see stress in real estate and leveraged companies, and private credit,” Dimon said. “Stocks are very high, and I think the chance of inflation staying high or rates going up are higher than people think,” the CEO said. “My view is whatever the world is pricing in for a soft landing, I think it’s probably half of that. I think the chances of something going wrong are higher than people think.” The CEO has been warning for months that inflation could be stickier than many investors are predicting, and wrote in his annual letter to shareholders that his bank is prepared for interest rates ranging from 2% to 8% “or even more.” Dimon said that “a lot of happy talk” is why markets aren’t pricing these elements in. Even though a bigger surprise would be higher rates, Dimon said that geopolitics could create the “main stress that we’re worried about” amid the impact those dynamics have on oil and gas prices, trade and alliances. With war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, tensions in North Korea and the use of nuclear blackmail, the geopolitical situation is “very tense,” he said. When it comes to China, the right thing for America is to “fully and deeply” engage, he said. Still, the fragile relationship between the two countries makes banking in the country — where Dimon said JPMorgan has roughly 1,500 multinational clients — a riskier prospect. “They’re not leaving China, so we’re going to serve our clients there, we’re just much more cognizant the risk is higher,” he said. “You look at China from a risk-reward basis, it used to be very good, it’s not so great any more.” Basel III The financial world has been in a heated debate over US proposals tied to what’s called the Basel III Endgame — an international regulatory overhaul initiated more than a decade ago in response to the financial crisis of 2008. US regulators have decided to adjust the original proposals following substantial backlash. Dimon reiterated his comments that the proposals are excessive. “I would love to know what the end game is,” Dimon said. “Regulators should answer the question: What do you want — How do you want the system to work?” Uncertainty pushes Gold prices (XAUUSD) more higher, later than The US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday reported the April consumer-price index rose by 0.3% from March. Shelter, gas prices remain sticky. Notable call-outs from the inflation print include the shelter index, which rose 5.5% on an unadjusted, annual basis, a slowdown from March. The Shelter index (the largest US CPI component with near 32% weight) rose 0.4% month over month and was the largest factor in the monthly increase in core prices, according to the BLS. Sticky shelter inflation that was one of the main reason of 2007-09 Financial crisis is largely to blame for higher core inflation readings, according to economists. The main technical graph is an inverted (normalized) chart for expected Federal funds rate at mid-March 2025, based on respective Mar'25 FedFunds Futures Contract (ZQH2025). Following the upside trend, as well as forming reversed Head-and-shoulders structure, the nearest target can be around 8 1/4 - 8 1/2 over the next 12 months. Historical backtest analyses says, this scenario is not a nonsense, as in early 1980s the difference between US 10-Year T-Bond rates and US Interest rate has been already hugely negative at similar market conditions (fighting against non-stop inflation). Let's see what is next in nowadays..
CBOT:ZQH2025
by Pandorra
😳 TREASURY-BONDS COLLAPSE IS JUST ONE STEP AWAY TO COME BACKThe collapse in Treasury bonds in 2021-2023 now ranked among the worst market crashes in history. Since March 2020 to 2023 fall, Treasury long term bonds with maturities of 10 years or more have plummeted over 40% while the 30-year bond had plunged over 50%. That's just under losses seen in the stock market when the dot-com bubble burst. The bond rout was worse than the one seen in 1981 when the 10-year yield neared 16%. The bond-market sell-off that's sending yields soaring is starting to eclipse again some of the most extreme market meltdowns of past eras. Those losses are nearly in line with stock-market losses seen during the worst crashes of recent history — when equities slumped 49% after the dot-com bubble burst and 57% in the aftermath of 2008. Compared with previous bond-market meltdowns, long-term Treasurys are seeing one of the most extreme undoings in history. The losses are over twice as big as those seen in 1981 when 10-year yields neared 16%. That crash came as the former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker grappled with historic inflation and pushed the federal funds rate to just under 20%. While interest rates remain well below that level today, the central bank's aggressive turn toward monetary tightening in the post-pandemic era has caused a similar bond-market rout. And some traders have continued selling amid concerns of rebounding inflation, while a deluge of Treasury issuance this year has also pressured bond prices. Technical graph for 10-year yield futures CBOT_MINI:10Y1! indicates that 52-weeks SMA support is still important for further T-Bonds pressure, while 10-year yield (unfortunately to T-Bonds holders) is still following major upside trendlines.
CBOT_MINI:10Y1!
by Pandorra
THREE WORDS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW — TNX GOES NUTS!Bank of America says the recession and credit crunch could lead to large corporate defaults. Credit strategists at Bank of America note that the fallout from the recession and credit crunch could see $1 trillion in corporate debt eventually become insolvent. This is largely due to the fact that banks have already begun to refuse lending conditions after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. US debt growth has also slowed in recent years, and a "full blown" recession has yet to be officially declared. If a full-blown recession does not occur in the next year or two, the restart of the credit cycle will be delayed. For now, analysts still predict that a moderate/short recession is more likely than a full blown recession. Markets are increasingly nervous about the prospect of a future downturn, with the New York Fed's Recession Probability Index projecting appr. 70 percent chance of a recession hitting by April 2024. The risk comes from the Fed's aggressive 21-fold increase in interest rates over the past 15 months to tame inflation. The US Federal Reserve, having fired a lot of "HIKE RATE" ammos over the past two years. And certainly has fulfilled its goals. In fact, in the second quarter of 2023, the rolling 12-month growth rate of the Consumer Price Index (April value = 4.9%) was below the Core CPI (April value = 5.5%). In human words that means prices of food and energy are deflating year-over-year. To some extent, the risk is also heightened by the recent banking turmoil, as lenders suffer losses on their "HELD-TO-MATURITY" (and in fact "READY-TO-SELL") portfolios of long-term corporate bonds and US Government bonds, as well as in due to a sharp outflow of deposits. The technical picture in TVC:TNX says the key trend is still strong, thanks to tailwinds from the first quarter of 2022 and support of Weekly SMA(52). The second half of 2023 is off to an interesting start. High quality "AAA" 10-year Bond' yield is back to pain levels corresponding to the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange last fall, as well as the collapse of regional and cryptocurrency banks as early as this spring, 2023 (like SVB, FRC and others). At the same time, real (that is, minus inflation) rates are now certainly much higher, against each of those two marks, as inflation is down.
TVC:US10Y
by Pandorra
2
🐹 Caution To All TLT Hamsters - TBT Has More Room to DeliverTBT is a UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury ETF. This Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to two times the inverse (-2x) of the Daily performance of the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index. 1. Always look first. Never rush into a trade or investment blindly. 2. Wait, and wait again, for the pattern to develop. 3. Be patient and use alerts to get notified when the time is right. 4. Measure trading ranges and adjust your plan for sideways action. 5. Look for bases and consolidations. 6. Zoom out and look for historical levels of support and resistance within those bases or consolidations. 7. Markets can go sideways longer than traders can stay solvent. 8. Adjust your stop loss and take profit targets for the choppy price action. 9. Be prepared for false breakouts and false breakdowns. 10. Choppy markets do not trade like trending markets. Technical picture in AMEX:TBT indicates it has possibility to further upside price action, up to 57 - 60 U.S. dollars per share, as key multi year resistance (5-years simple MA) has been successfully broken at the end of 2022.
AMEX:TBT
by Pandorra
Long Duration Bonds (TLT)We haven't had to manage cycle risk, on a sustained basis to the downside, since 2008-2009 and 2000-2002. The biggest problem in financial markets right now is there's no Event. This is just Cycle-Risk and we haven't had to manage cycle risk - on a sustained basis to the downside - since '08-'09, and 2000-2000 before then. The Fed is in QT. Financial conditions are still in accommodative territory, according to the Financial Conditions Index, and we have a long way to go. We will not see any dovish actions from the Fed until the economy deteriorates significantly. I'm convinced we're past the peak in terms of inflationary pressures. Looking at our portfolio, the #1 thing we aren't allocated to is duration. I think the long bond could rally 20-35% from here. I think when it moves, it's not going to let you back in the trade. The world is short-duration right now. Tons of cash on the sidelines. The dollar rising has been supporting U.S. equities. When it deflates, there will be a significant change in style factors. Expect a significant reversal in sector and style factors ahead. Simple rule on when to enter a long bond trade: It's compelling, given historical backtest, to go long the long bond when the year-over-year inflation rate peaks. (18-20% annualized) YoY Inflation data: fred.stlouisfed.org NFCI: fred.stlouisfed.org
NASDAQ:TLTLong
by RHTrading