Tag Archive: T-Bills

Ahead of the Week’s Central Bank Meetings, Risk Appetites Stoked

2023-06-12

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2023-06-12

Overview: Today may be the calm ahead of a tomorrow's US CPI and rate decisions by the Fed, ECB, BOJ, and PBOC over the next few days. Most large bourses in the Asia Pacific region rose and Europe's Stoxx 600 is snapping a three-day decline. US index futures are trading higher. US 10-year yield is slightly firmer as are core European benchmark yields. The dollar is under broad pressure and is weaker against the G10 currencies. Against emerging...

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The Biggest Risk, No Surprise, Collateral

2022-06-28

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2022-06-28

It’s not just the 4-week T-bill rate which is defying the Fed’s illusion of control, though that’s where the incidents are most evident. The front bill is nowhere close to the official RRP “floor” which can only mean one thing: collateral shortage, a large and persistent liquidity premium.

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T-bills Targeted Target

2022-05-20

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2022-05-20

Yesterday’s market “volatility” spilled (way) over into this morning’s trading. It ended up being a very striking example, perhaps the clearest and most alarming yet, of a scramble for collateral. The 4-week T-bill, well, the chart speaks for itself:During past scrambles, such as those last year, they didn’t look like this. They would hit, stick around for an hour, maybe a bit longer, and then clear up as collateral books get balanced in repo like...

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Collateral Shortage…From *A* Fed Perspective

2022-05-07

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2022-05-07

It’s never just one thing or another. Take, for example, collateral scarcity. By itself, it’s already a problem but it may not be enough to bring the whole system to reverse. A good illustration would be 2017. Throughout that whole year, T-bill rates (4-week, in particular) kept indicating this very shortfall, especially the repeated instances when equivalent bill yields would go below the RRP “floor” and often stay there for prolonged periods....

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What Really ‘Raises’ The Rising ‘Dollar’

2022-05-03

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2022-05-03

It’s one of those things which everyone just accepts because everyone says it must be true. If the US$ is rising, what else other than the Federal Reserve. In particular, the Fed has to be raising rates in relation to other central banks; interest rate differentials.

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Yield Curve Inversion Was/Is Absolutely All About Collateral

2022-04-18

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2022-04-18

If there was a compelling collateral case for bending the Treasury yield curve toward inversion beginning last October, what follows is the update for the twist itself. As collateral scarcity became shortage then a pretty substantial run, that was the very moment yield curve flattening became inverted.Just like October, you can actually see it all unfold.

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The Fed Inadvertently Adds To Our Ironclad Collateral Case Which Does Seem To Have Already Included A ‘Collateral Day’ (or days)

2022-03-21

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2022-03-21

The Federal Reserve didn’t just raise the range for its federal funds target by 25 bps, upper and lower bounds, it also added the same to its twin policy tools which the “central bank” says are crucial to maintaining order in money markets thereby keeping federal funds inside the band where it is supposed to be. The FOMC voted to increase IOER from 15 bps to 40 bps, and the RRP from 5 bps to 30 bps.

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There Is An Absolutely Solid Collateral Case For What’s Driving Curve Inversion(s) [Part 2]

2022-03-18

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2022-03-18

Securities lending as standard practice is incredibly complicated, and for many the process can be counterintuitive. With numerous different players contributing various pieces across a wide array of financial possibilities, not to mention the whole expanse of global geography, collateral for collateral swaps have gone largely unnoticed by even mainstream Economics and central banking.

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Playing Dominoes

2021-12-19

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2021-12-19

That was fast. Just yesterday I said watch out for when the oil curve flips from backwardation to contango. When it does, that’s not a good sign. Generally speaking, it means something has changed with regard to future expectations, at least one of demand, supply, or also money/liquidity.

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Bill Issuance Has Absolutely Surged, So Why *Haven’t* Yields, Reflation, And Other Good Things?

2021-11-02

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2021-11-02

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hasn’t just been busy hawking cash management bills, her department has also been filling back up with the usual stuff, too. Regular T-bills. Going back to October 14, at the same time the CMB’s have been revived, so, too, have the 4-week and 13-week (3-month). Not the 8-week, though.

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Short Run TIPS, LT Flat, Basically Awful Real(ity)

2021-10-28

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2021-10-28

Over the past week and a half, Treasury has rolled out the CMB’s (cash management bills; like Treasury bills, special issues not otherwise part of the regular debt rotation) one after another: $60 billion 40-day on the 19th; $60 billion 27-day on the 20th; and $40 billion 48-day just yesterday.

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The Curve Is Missing Something Big

2021-10-21

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2021-10-21

What would it look like if the Treasury market was forced into a cross between 2013 and 2018? I think it might be something like late 2021. Before getting to that, however, we have to get through the business of decoding the yield curve since Economics and the financial media have done such a thorough job of getting it entirely wrong (see: Greenspan below).

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CPI’s At Fives Yet Treasury Auctions

2021-08-12

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2021-08-12

A momentous day, for sure, but one lost in what would turn out to be a seemingly endless sea of them. October 8, 2008, right in the thick of the world’s first global financial crisis (how could it have been global, surely not subprime mortgages?) the Federal Reserve took center stage; or tried to.

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Golden Collateral Checking

2021-07-27

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2021-07-27

Dollar Correlations, 2018-2021
Searching for clues or even small collateral indications, you can’t leave out the gold market. We’ve been on the lookout for scarcity primarily via the T-bill market, and that’s a good place to start, yet looking back to last March the relationship between bills and bullion was uniquely strong. It’s therefore a persuasive pattern if or when it turns up again.

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Lower Yields And (fewer) Bills

2021-07-21

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2021-07-21

Back on February 23, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell stopped by (in a virtual, Zoom sense) the Senate Banking Committee to testify as required by law. In the Q&A portion, he was asked the following by Montana’s Senator Steve Daines.

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The FOMC Accidentally Exposes Itself (Reverse Repo-style)

2021-06-18

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2021-06-18

UST Yield Curve, Mar 2021 - Jun 2021
Initially, the dots got all the attention. Though these things are beyond hopeless, the media needs them to write up its account of a more fruitful monetary policy outcome because markets continue to discount that entirely.

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FX Daily, May 18: Risk Appetites Return Bigly

2021-05-18

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2021-05-18

In Asia, equities markets rallied strongly, led by the more than 5% gain in Taiwan, the most in over a year as Monday's 3% drop was more than overcome. The Nikkei gained more than 2% despite the deeper than expected contraction in Q1 GDP. Hong Kong, South Korea, and India also rose more than a 1% gain as tech came roaring back.

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What Might Be In *Another* Market-based Yield Curve Twist?

2021-02-23

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2021-02-23

Pro forma CES Private Payrolls, 2020-2021
With the UST yield curve currently undergoing its own market-based twist, it’s worth investigating a couple potential reasons for it. On the one hand, the long end, clear cut reflation: markets are not, as is commonly told right now, pricing 1979 Great Inflation #2, rather how the next few years may not be as bad (deflationary) as once thought a few months ago.

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Two Seemingly Opposite Ends Of The Inflation Debate Come Together

2021-02-19

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2021-02-19

US Import Price Index All Commedities, 2019-2021
It’s worth taking a look at a couple of extremes, and the putting each into wider context of inflation/deflation. As you no doubt surmise, only one is receiving much mainstream attention. The other continues to be overshadowed by…anything else.

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Just Who Is, And Who Is Not, Selling T-Bills

2020-11-29

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2020-11-29

Are foreigners selling Treasury bills? If they are, this would seem to merit consideration for the reflation argument. After all, the paramount monetary deficiency exposed by March’s GFC2 (and the Fed’s blatant role in making it worse) was the dangerous degree of shortage over the best collateral.

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