Normally, investors rush into Treasurys at a whiff of economic chaos but now they are selling them as not even the lure of higher interest payments on the bonds is getting them to buy. The freak development has experts worried that big banks, funds and traders are losing faith in America as a good place to store their money.
“The fear is the U.S. is losing its standing as the safe haven,” said George Cipolloni, a fund manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “Our bond market is the biggest and most stable in the world, but when you add instability, bad things can happen.”
That could be bad news for consumers in need of a loan — and for President Donald Trump, who had hoped his tariff pause earlier this week would restore confidence in the markets.
I’m no expert but it seems to me if the yields have to go up to get buyers, it’s like raising the interest rates on a loan. You can still get the loan but you have to buy less car/house if you want to afford the payments.
You’re mostly right.
Most T Bills and Bonds… they don’t work like a credit card or a home loan.
Those are things you pay a bit on every month, and the interest rate is an APR, which means Annualized Percentage Rate, which means the monthly interest rate you are paying is the APR divided by 12.
So with those, the bank gets money every month untill you pay it all off.
With Bonds… say a 5 year Bond… you pay for the Bond, newly issued by the US govt, and 5 years later, you hand it back to them, and they pay you the face value + interest rate.
But, people who have already bought a bond, well they can sell it again, before it matures, to… some other guy, some other country, some other firm.
Thats called the ‘secondary market’, and most of the time you hear a news story about bond prices and yields, its a second party selling a bond to a third party.
Generally, when the US does an issuance auction of new debt directly… well, it has to generally track the prices and yields set by the various secondary markets, sorta like how you’d wanna check a car salesman’s price against kelly blue book to make sure you’re getting a reasonable deal.
There were moments in thr GFC, 07 08 09, where US debt auctions … didn’t actually result in the amount of bonds expected to sell, actually selling, because there were enough potential bond buyers who assessed that the US was offering unreasonable prices and yields, given the economic turmoil.
… I am not an ‘expert’ either, but I do actually have a BSc in Econ, and I apparently remember a good deal of my courses, and enjoy infodumping lol.
There are two different kinds of bonds, you described the couponless bonds, but most bonds pay a coupon. We are responsible for paying interest on those bonds bi-yearly. It’s an important part of the trade dynamic because the bonds can be traded for USD and produce USD for the older. If there is no international trade there’s no reason for them to hold our bonds.
So just to help your example most people are looking for the cashflow. They give the US $1,000 and they want the $40 a year. They can then use the 40$ a year to exchange for goods and services without having to shuffle around much money. Since banks, countries and industrys are tied to this income the threat of default is truly a global wrecking ball.
Ah, ok, I appreciate the correction!
Doing my best trying to remember my course work from almost two decades ago, looks like I missed an important detail.
… and that detail makes the situation… even worse, wonderful.
You we’re pretty much right on the money. I think the Zero Coupon bonds are more of a hedgefund favorites. Your average investor is going to be holding the couponed version in their 401k.
Oh goodie, thats wonderful news for the 401k havers, rofl.
Yeah, that’s why I called my senator because this isn’t really the same as Nancy Pelosi making her self rich on Google calls. This is robbing every single investor in the world. Stealing straight out of grandma’s retirement account.
Thank-you for your info dump :)
Yay, validation lol!