Interest rates were supposed to go up when the end of quantitative easing (printing money) came into focus. That was the gospel according to Pimco’s Bill Gross, who dumped all his Treasuries, who indeed went short the U.S. government-bond market. But as the chart shows, the benchmark rate on 10-year [continue reading . . . ]
Mohamed El-Erian and Bill Gross of Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco), the world’s largest fixed-income manager, to the best of my knowledge originated the phrase “new normal” to indicate that things fundamentally changed following the Panic of September 2008 and its aftermath. After studying a number of their writings, freely [continue reading . . . ]
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s historic press conference, economic policy, high-speed rail and Boeing’s travails with the 787 were among topics on KUOW’s Weekday program today. The Seattle Times columnist and blogger Jon Talton and I batted these and other issues around for nearly 40 minutes with host Steve Scher. Here’s [continue reading . . . ]
The U.S. is in such dire financial shape that it must raise taxes on the middle class as well as the rich AND curtail, via means-testing, giant entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. That’s the Easter Sunday sermon from supply-side guru and former OMB director David A. Stockman via [continue reading . . . ]
Will the bond market tank when the Fed stops buying Treasury paper in a few weeks? As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, two of the biggest players in the fixed-income market are at polar opposites. They both can’t be right. As I told a friend today, this is why [continue reading . . . ]
Is the dollar’s long run as the global reserve currency coming to an end? It is if the Chinese have anything to say about it. China owns the globe’s largest store of dollar-denominated assets outside the U.S. Understandably, it wants to diversify. The world needs an “international reserve currency that [continue reading . . . ]
I’m nuts about newspapers. Always have been. I still crave the real thing, newsprint. Of the four newspapers that I read every day, I find the Financial Times by far the most interesting. It is full of commentary — on markets, especially on politics and economics. I never fail to [continue reading . . . ]