Tuesday, April 28, 2009

To Bond or Not To Bond

So, I don't like how my Treasuries are treating me. I'm going to write down the pros and cons.

Contra:
  1. First thing against bonds is the massive Treasury borrowing.
  2. Then there's the fact that a faltering economy is causing a 7% drop in income tax receipts, exacerbating the supply problem.
  3. Also, every big job loss announcement leads to a bond selloff as more government printing is expected to offset the losses.
  4. Fed buying bonds. Unfortunately, this muddies the market and is probably a negative. If the Fed has to print to lower rates, then who would want to hold them at those rates?
  5. The Fed printing can hold down rates, but that means that those lower rates are causing weakness in the dollar.
  6. China has stopped buying a lot of bonds. If their economy recovers, they'll probably buy more commodities. If it doesn't, they won't be buying Treasuries anyway.

Pro:

  1. If the economy recovers, dollar stays strong. If the economy weakens, the rest of the world is worse off, and the dollar gets even stronger. A strong dollar will make bonds more attractive.
  2. Everyone hates bonds and thinks they're in a bubble.
  3. The real rate of return is huge, as CPI is really -5%.
  4. Bonds have sold off during this huge inflation rally that started in February.
  5. Credit card defaults are going parabolic.
  6. Commercial real estate defaults are going parabolic.
  7. There's been a huge run into risk over the past couple of months.

My biggest problem here is that there's no reflexive, self-reinforcement working in my favor here. If anything, we've got a situation where any good news for bonds is killed by the Fed printing more money. I need to get out. But this is not the time. I need to wait for a more bearish sentiment to reappear.


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home