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Gold gains some ground despite U.S. dollar’s rebound as traders focus on the continuation of the pullback in Treasury yields. From the technical point of view, gold needs to settle above the resistance at $3235 – $3245 to gain additional upside momentum in the near term. Silver remains stuck below the 50 MA at $32.51 as traders wait for additional catalysts. If silver moves back below the $32.00 level, it will head towards the nearest support at $31.45 – $31.75. Platinum tests new highs as rally continues amid tariff optimism. Platinum is heading towards the nearest resistance at $960 –...

The bond sell-off escalated Friday to cap off one of the most volatile and unusual trading weeks in recent memory as President Trump's tariff whipsaw sent yields surging and stocks plummeting.Long-term Treasury yields ripped higher, with the 10-year yield (^TNX) surging to its highest level since February to trade at around 4.53%, a massive 66 basis point swing from Monday's low of 3.87%.According to data compiled by Yahoo Finance, the 10-year has logged its biggest week since November 2021.Similarly, the 30-year yield (^TYX) jumped 7 basis points to trade near 4.92% — the highest level since January but the biggest...

Confidence in the US economy is plummeting as investors dumped government debt amid growing concerns over the impact of Donald Trump's tariffs. On Wednesday, the yield - or interest rate - on US bonds spiked sharply to touch the highest level since February at 4.5%. The government sell bonds - essentially an IOU - to raise money from financial markets and these are viewed as a safe investment, meaning the US normally does not need to offer high rates to attract buyers. Trump has gone ahead with sweeping tariffs on goods being imported into the US, while Washington's trade war...

China responds by selling another $50BN in TSY. Oh btw, the yield on 10Ys is now almost unchanged from Liberation Day!

President Donald Trump raised eyebrows Friday by sharing a video on Truth Social that claims he purposefully crashed the stock market to "push cash into treasuries." Trump's timing was especially provocative because his rollout of tariffs the previous day resulted in a multi-trillion dollar market wipeout.

Investors abroad sold longer term Treasuries for three consecutive months, a sign of central bankers reducing their reliance on the U.S. as a financial buffer. In January, foreigners sold a net $13.3 billion of U.S. notes and bonds that had more than one year to maturity, the latest Treasury data show. It comes after $49.69 billion was sold in December, following sales of $34.41 billion in the month of U.S. elections, November. Global central banks represent a big chunk of foreign demand. Before the back-to-back net selling of the world’s safest debt, foreigners had kept buying for 15 straight months....

U.S. Treasuries are now outperforming stocks since Donald Trump was elected President, and some strategists say there’s room for those gains to run. A Bloomberg gauge of U.S. sovereign debt has returned 2.1 per cent since the Nov. 5 vote, beating a gain of 1.6 per cent from the S&P 500 index including reinvested dividends. While long-end Treasuries declined on Tuesday after Trump imposed new 25 per cent trade tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the prospect of further Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts is seen giving bonds a further tailwind. Stocks meanwhile are being sold, as the outlook for global growth...

@WatcherGuru JUST IN: President Trump says Elon Musk's DOGE may have found fraud in treasuries.

According to Bank of America, gold has overtaken the euro to become the world’s second-largest central bank reserve asset. With the central bank gold buying spree over the last several years, along with the rapid rise in price in 2024, the yellow metal now makes up about 16 percent of total reserve assets, just ahead of the euro. The dollar’s share of reserves has dropped to 58 percent. There appears to be a movement to replace fiat currencies, including the dollar, with gold, especially in emerging market countries in the East. Central banks globally added a net 483 tons of...

Long touted as hands-down the world's "safe haven" securities, the behavior of U.S. Treasuries during and after the COVID-19 pandemic calls that label into question, suggesting they are little different from the debt issued by the likes of Germany, Britain, France, or even big corporations. That's the key finding of new research presented at the Kansas City Fed's annual research conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It examines a shift in investor behavior in that period that raises questions about the "exorbitant privilege" the U.S. government has long enjoyed to borrow broadly on the global market even as federal budget gaps...

The increasing likelihood of a second Trump administration has helped spark a selloff in U.S. government bonds, with investors betting policies including tax cuts could drive up deficits and inflation. Treasury yields, which rise when bond prices fall, started surging June 28, a day after a debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump that Wall Street viewed as delivering a major blow to Biden’s re-election chances. A poor showing from Biden could also help tip control of Congress to Republicans, creating more space for their budget priorities. “Something obviously changed pretty quickly on Friday,” said Dan Mulholland, head...

According to a new report by analysts at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Waren Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/BRK.B), controls 3% of the entire Treasury Bill market. Buffett now has $158 billion U.S. invested in Treasury Bills, or T-bills as they are known. A T-bill is a short-term debt obligation backed by the U.S. Treasury Department with a maturity of one-year or less. Interest is paid on T-bills when they mature or expire. With interest rates elevated, T-bills are currently paying interest of between 5% and 6%, depending on the length of time to maturity. Buffett has said that he favors...

Last week, I talked about the best places to keep your short-term cash, including Treasurys and certain certificates of deposit (CDs).Perhaps Warren Buffett is a Wealthy Retirement reader, because his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, is holding more cash in Treasurys than ever before: $189 billion. (As they used to say in the old New York state lottery commercial, “That’s a lot of bread!”)Interestingly, the only time Berkshire’s cash stash has declined since 2016 was in 2022, when the market had an awful year and dropped by more than 19%. That tells us that as the market was falling, Buffett was putting...

Warren Buffett hasn’t found a lot to like in the stock market recently.In each of the last six quarters, Buffett has sold more stocks for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) than he bought. Last quarter, he sold off a big chunk of his Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) position and the entirety of his Paramount Global (NASDAQ: PARA) investment. All told, he sold nearly $20 billion worth of stocks from Berkshire’s portfolio, and he bought less than $3 billion.Buffett lamented investment opportunities for Berkshire are few and far between as the company grows bigger. With a market cap of about $877 billion, there...

It has been over three years since the disastrous Covid economic shutdowns of 2020. And here we are again! US investment-grade bond yields have just had the biggest two-day drop since April 2020. And the US Treasury 10Y-2Y curve remains steeply inverted. Help me Jerome!

US 10-year yields are rising at a rapid pace. US 10-year yields have risen to 4.70% from 4.0% since early August. The moves have come despite stable market-measured inflation and Fed expectations. Aside from some moderate underlying strength, there haven't been any big economic surprises either. The scariest part about it is that there's no good explanation for why it's happening.Lately, there's been some hope that it was quarter-end or some kind of one-off puke but with two auctions missing this week (including today), it's increasingly clear that real-money demand just isn't there. There are scenarios where this blowout isn't...

The Dow fell more than 400 points Tuesday morning, turning negative for the year, as US Treasury yields surged to their highest levels in over a decade. The Dow fell 427 points, or 1.3%. The benchmark S&P 500 declined 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.8%, extending the late summer selloff in stocks. Stocks have marched higher for most of this year, as artificial intelligence excitement took hold on Wall Street and powered tech stocks to stratospheric heights. But that rally petered out in August, as strong economic data had investors worried that a resilient economy and piping hot labor...

The Treasury market may be entering a period of historic volatility on par with March 2020 as leveraged investors have stalled in their purchases and a new marginal buyer has not yet arrived. When the Fed and commercial banks stepped away from the Treasury market in mid-2022, hedge funds stepped in (fedguy.com/back-to-2019/) and bought cash Treasuries in size as part of a cash futures basis trade. The financing for that trade is sourced through dealer repo, which grew rapidly in mid-2022 and has since stalled. While dealers have access to virtually unlimited financing from Fed repo borrowing (libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2022/01/the-feds-latest-tool-a-standing-repo-facility/), the size...

A Wall Street selloff intensified Tuesday as rising Treasury yields piled on pressure and investors got a reminder not to expect a Federal Reserve interest rate cut any time soon. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped almost 1.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) tumbled about 1.1%, or more than 350 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was down over 1.5% after closing with a gain on Monday. Hawkish comments by Fed policymakers reminded investors that resilience in the US economy likely means borrowing costs will stay higher for longer. Traders are now pricing in odds of 29% that policymakers...

With its CDS trading like an emerging market, it is likely no surprise that Fitch Ratings has placed the United States' 'AAA' Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) on Rating Watch Negative.CDS is trading like USA is anything but AAA-rated...With Fitch placing the United States' 'AAA' rating on Rating Watch Negative, here is an update of a very old chart I used to published: Composite Credit Rating (across the agencies) vs. 5Y CDS Across Select Countries. For obvious reasons, US CDS isn't trading in the AAA range. pic.twitter.com/yzyN4jluA8— Michael McDonough (@M_McDonough) May 25, 2023The T-Bill curve is not buying the...