This past week has been much the same as the last couple of months – boring. It has been more interesting trying to count carpet fibers in my office than watching the markets.
However, there has been some excitement in domestic bond yields that have SURGED over the last couple of weeks. Well, as I discussed earlier this week, its a surge alright, you just need a magnifying glass to actually see it.
“The chart below is a 40-year history of the 10-year Treasury interest rate. The dashed red lines denote the long-term downtrend in interest rates.”
“The recent SURGE in interest rates is hardly noticeable when put into a long-term perspective. After rates dropped to their second lowest level in history of 1.68%, only exceeded by the “great debt ceiling default crisis of 2012” level of 1.46%, the recent bounce to 2.26% was expected“
There also has been the divergence in economic data, some good, but mostly not. This has been good for the stock market as “bad news” means the Federal Reserve has no reason to raise rates in the near future. This is particularly the case with first quarter’s GDP printing negative and second quarter’s falling below 1%.
This leaves investors in a precarious position of remaining invested as the financial markets levitate away from underlying economic realities. In fact, as recently pointed out by Tyler Durden at Zerohedge, the deviation of the markets from the economic data is one of the largest since the turn of the century.
For now, however, we wait for the market to decide its next action. Will be a resumption of the “bull run” as the vast majority expect or will the contrarian side of the markets finally prevail? I think we will have that answer very soon.
While we await that answer, I have compiled a this week’s reading list to include a smattering of articles on everything from the markets, to investing, to the Fed to the economy.
