Last week, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time. And the Fed isn’t alone. A majority of the world’s central banks have slashed rates this year. A World Gold Council report says this new regime of easy monetary policy will likely push bond yields down even lower, making gold a more attractive portfolio diversifier.
As negative yielding debt increases alongside stock-to-yield valuations to all-time highs, gold may become an attractive and more effective diversifier than bonds, justifying a higher portfolio allocation than historical performance suggests.”
In a move “Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach said could be a prelude to the next round of quantitative easing, the New York Fed conducted a repurchase operation involving about $53 billion in debt instruments on Tuesday. The move to designed to unplug the financial system’s “plumbing” with an injection of cash was the first such move since the financial crisis a decade ago.
The purchases involved about $40.8 billion of Treasurys, $11.7 billion in mortgage-backed securities and $600 million in agency debt, according to a CNBC report. The move was prompted by the recent surge in interest rates that drove the overnight repo rate Monday to as high as 8.5%.
The New York Fed was expected to repeat the operation on Wednesday.
Former Reagan administration OMB Director David Stockman has called this the “mother of all bond bubbles.” Has that bubble popped? That remains to be seen, but bonds got hammered last week.
Bonds have pretty much moved in tandem with gold over the last several weeks as perceived safe-haven trades. Peter Schiff talked about it in his latest podcast, saying he thinks the bond market is eventually going to decouple from gold.
Corporations are piling on the debt.
Last week, companies borrowed $74 billion in the US investment-grade bond market. It was the largest corporate debt increase for any comparable period since they started tracking such things in 1972.
Here we go again!
Gold and silver both took a tumble yesterday because US and Chinese officials are reportedly going to have a meeting. Hope that this might mean a thaw in the trade war boosted risk sentiment and drove profit-taking in the precious metals markets.
We’ve seen this song and dance before. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about it. He also points out some very interesting Federal Reserve news that nobody in the mainstream has even mentioned.
Has QE4 already started?
For the first time since October 2014, the Federal Reserve has bought a significant number of US Treasurys. Over the past two weeks, the Fed purchased $14 billion in US bonds.
The bond market flashed a major recession warning sign as the yield curve inverted this week. Meanwhile, Trump whipsawed markets when he appeared to blink in the never-ending trade war with China. That made for an interesting week for gold. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the events of the last few days and their impact on precious metals. He also remembers an important day in history that went mostly unnoticed in the mainstream.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell below the yield on the 2-year for the first time in 12 years, stoking recession fears and tanking stock markets.
Yield curve inversions have preceded all nine recessions since 1955. This was the first time the 10-year Treasury yield has dropped below the 2-year yield since June 2007 – the cusp of the Great Recession.
The price of gold surged this week, breaking all-time records in a number of currencies. It also did pretty well in dollar terms, hitting six-year highs and pushing above the key $1,500 level. Meanwhile, silver had its best single day in over three years. What drove this week’s precious metals rally? And can we expect it to continue? Host Mike Maharrey talks about it in this week’s Friday Gold Wrap.
China dumped more US Treasurys in May, pushing their holdings to the lowest level in two years, according to data released this week by the US Treasury Department.
The Chinese divested themselves of US debt for the third straight month, selling off another $2.8 billion in Treasurys in May. The month before, China dumped $7.5 billion in US bonds and that followed on the heels of the biggest US Treasury selloff by the Chinese in nearly 2 1/2 years in March. Over the last three months alone, the Chinese have shed $20.3 billion in US debt.
