Inflation-protected securities sold at negative yields for the first time ever on Monday as traders anticipate that the Federal Reserve will start a new round of asset purchases.Basically, this means that "the market," a nebulous thing whose predictive powers I think are overrated, is nonetheless predicting deflation.
Analysts said that asset purchases by the Fed would lead to a higher inflation rate and a positive return on the bonds.
The $10 billion auction of the five-year bonds sold at a negative yield of 0.550 percent, according to the Treasury Department. The results of the auction of the securities, known as TIPS, came as indexes on Wall Street edged higher, buoyed by recent strong corporate earnings and a rise in housing sales. The previous lowest yield for the TIPS was in the auction on April 26, when the yield was 0.550 percent.
“It is saying that there is a true demand for inflation securities, because people perceive the quantitative easing program is enabling a higher inflation rate in the future,” said Tom di Galoma, head of fixed-income rates trading at Guggenheim Partners.
Time to break out those helicopters, Ben.
Why helicopters? That's what the USPS is for. Simply send each person in the US a $1000 check.
ReplyDeleteIt' a reference to "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke.
ReplyDeleteSee the Wiki:
In 2002, when the word "deflation" began appearing in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about deflation. In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money. Control of the means of production for money implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. He said "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost." (He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a "helicopter drop" of money into the economy to fight deflation.) Bernanke's critics have since referred to him as "Helicopter Ben" or to his "helicopter printing press." In a footnote to his speech, Bernanke noted that "people know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation." For example, while Greenspan publicly supported President Clinton's deficit reduction plan and the Bush tax cuts, Bernanke, when questioned about taxation policy, said that it was none of his business, his exclusive remit being monetary policy, and said that fiscal policy and wider society related issues were what politicians were for and got elected for. But Bernanke has been identified by the Wall Street Journal and a close colleague as a "libertarian-Republican" in the mold of Alan Greenspan. However, Bloomberg News writes he is "siding with John Maynard Keynes against Milton Friedman by flooding the financial system with money"