So it has finally happened. After threatening for months that a credit rating down grade was probable for the USA, Standard & Poor's finally took the 'big step' on Friday 5 August, after the major markets closed.







So what next?






In our article 'US Treasuries - Are the markets really that bothered?' published on 30 July 2011, we argued that the markets were not really bothered, as both 5 & 7 year T-Bill currently delivered a negative Real Return to investors.






Everyone is dreading the opening bells in stock capital and forex market on Monday, yet we believe the fundamental question for this week will be:






Is this an FX or market call?






What we meanby this question is:






Will the markets and market participants see the down grade as an opportunity to play an FX gain game; or has the game fundamentally shifted and will the capital markets react by demanding a higher nominal or at least Real Return on US Treasury bills?






All pointers at the moment did not indicate a problem, but time will tell on whether a fundamental shift in attitude has occurred. Remember a credit rating is only a qualitative indicator, not a quantitative one, so on a technical call a few FX traders and investors might make a profit or two; but we are all waiting to see if the entire game has changed, or not.






Other factors that might come into play soon would be QE3 and attitude hardening by major T-Bill investors.






How the US Treasury and administration now react will be crucial.






Who are we going to trust to make this big call?






theMarketSoul © 2011

A sigh of relief?

Some say that in life timing is everything...

And so too it is with economics.  We don’t yet have a fully developed and ‘mature’ [in terms of life-cycle] grasp of the impact of timing with leads and lags in the economy in general.

Yes, we have very sophisticated and advance models, analytics, knowledge management, quantitative theories, etc.; but we still do not fully comprehend the impact of time and timing in general on the factors of production influencing our ‘modern’ global economy.

In short, it looks like the potential calamitous US Debt Ceiling crisis has been averted (events during Monday 1 August still need to unfurl), meaning that the US nation can continue to settle its debt obligations for a little while longer, without President Obama having to resort to the 14^th Amendment.

And this is where the timing conversation picks up its thread again.  The Debt Ceiling needs to the raised in order to settle obligations already incurred, not new spending.  Therefore, the future continues to look uncertain for the point at which ‘peak US Debt’ will be reached and how long creditor nations and other institutions will continue to fund the US appetite for amassing what seems to be an insurmountable and unsustainable level of sovereign debt.  In our previous article we discussed the negative Real US T-Bill Yields on both new 5 and 7 year US Treasuries.  If this is anything to go by, ‘peak US Debt’ must still be little while off in the distant future.

If only we could get the timing thing right and have a more insightful and meaningful (adult) debate not just in the US, but including global partners, both creditors and debtors alike.

But such is the nature of markets and spontaneous order, as espoused by our friends at the Austrian School, that we still believe and endorse the fact that ‘the market’ is still the best and most efficient mechanism for allocating resources (even financial and debt instruments) and informing the participants of potential risks and opportunities for clearing this market.

theMarketSoul ©2011

The Theory of Money and Credit

The US Treasury Yield Curves – Are the markets really that bothered?

As a general introduction today we will look at two US Treasury Yield curves.  The first Yield curve in the Curve graphic 1 below is the 3 Month bills compared to the 10 Year bills over the last 5 years.

Yield Curve 1

In this table it is clear that the current 10 Year rate of 2.82% as of 29 July 2011, is still well below the 5 year average rate.  The trend of the 3 Month bills, especially over the last few months has drifted aimlessly between 0.15% on 28 February 2011 and currently at 0.10% on 29 July 2011.  There is in fact no noticeable concern in the Bond / Capital market over the potential technical US Treasury default on 2 August 2011.

The second curve below in Curve graphic 2 illustrates this fact of the 3 Month bills trend since 28 February 2011 to 29 July 2011.  As can be observed, in the last few days a very slight spike has been observed, yet the rate at 0.10% is still below the 0.15% rate of 28 February 2011.

Yield Curve 2

In real monetary terms it is costing 5 Year Treasury bill holders (0.72%) (Yes a negative return of 0.72% currently to buy 5 Year Treasuries. (See US Treasury web site).

It will be interesting to observe and track the trends over the coming days, especially as we kick off August and Debt Ceiling D-Day in the US congress and Senate.

theMarketSoul ©2011

Source Material:  US Treasury web site: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/Pages/default.aspx

A Storm in a 'Tea' cup

Never resist the temptation to start a discussion with a pun.

In our previous article we highlighted the ‘battle royal’ on Capitol Hill to get a proposal agreed to address the possibility of a US Treasury default, whether actual or technical on or after 2 August 2011.

So the Republicans could not muster together enough support on Thursday to ensure safe passage of the bill to the Senate, where it looks likely to be overturned or severely amended in any case.

There is obviously a lot of back room dealing going on over this and analysts in Europe (taking their beading eyes off the Greek and now Italian and Spanish dominoes) have started to pay attention to the goings on across the pond.  We heard one commentator mention the fact that the USA’ reputation has already been affected by this, irrespective of the fact that a default occurs or not.

So there you go.  The fringe minority floating in the ‘Tea’ cup with a lack of the ability to look over the brim of that particular cup, might in fact achieve their overall objective of raising their own profiles, albeit at the expense of the nation’s reputation and standing as a pillar of the international capital market.

Look, we are not choosing sides here, because at the heart of the matter is the fundamental principles of civil society versus the public sphere debate raging and continuing to rage in the USA.

In our next article we will highlight some of the basic differences in opinion and views on the size and influence of government in the USA versus Europe, via the Rahn curve analysis.

Until then, it is tick, tock; tick, tock whilst we await the vote and subsequent consequences and fall-out from the US debt ceiling debate.

theMarketSoul ©2011

Hold your nerve!

It is a confidence thing.

We are so very, very close to seeing and experiencing another colossal collapse in confidence in the world’s financial system.

This time it is driven by the ‘US Debt Ceiling impasse’.  A steady flight to gold has been taking place over the past few months and even though most informed commentators believe the  US Treasury ‘default scenario’ is not likely to physically occur, the mere threat of a default has not yet managed to ‘focus the minds’ of the US congress house of representatives locked in an ideological battle over fundamental economic policy and direction.

At stake here is a scenario that will make the 2008 financial crisis wane into insignificance, should the threat of a US Treasuries default actually play out. 

Yet, very few mainstream headlines outside of the United States have been published about this potential catastrophic event.  And we are only a few days away from the edge of disaster (Default D-Day is chalked up for Tuesday 2 August 2011) and the Washington Post has a default clock ticking down on this deadline web site.

If a default actually occurs, confidence in the international capital and currency markets will have been breached and no serious commentator has yet fully quantified or effectively mapped out the potential consequences of this potentially disastrous collapse in capital market confidence.

The only significant contribution we can make at this publication is to cross our fingers, hold as much in cash and liquid (non US dollar) assets and hope that some real focus and a meeting of minds occurs before Tuesday 2 August 2011 on Capitol Hill.

theMarketSoul ©2011