Morning Report: Rates heading lower

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are lower this morning as bond yields continue to fall worldwide. Bonds and MBS are up.

Mortgage applications fell 3% last week as purchases declined 1% and refis declined 6%. This is despite a 6 basis point drop in mortgage rates.

Bond yields are down worldwide, with Japan, Australia, and Germany all hitting lows or close to it. This is not being driven by trade concerns – it is being driven by economic malaise in Europe. The German Bund, which is the European benchmark, is yielding -17 basis points (which means you have to pay to lend to the German government). Japanese government bonds yield -10 basis points. All of this will pull down US bond yields as investors swap out of negative yielding assets into positive yielding ones. Even if investors need to bear the foreign exchange risk to buy a US Treasury, many of them figure a possible loss is a better deal than a certain one.

Expect the narrative of the business press to evolve as this goes on, from worrying about trade issues to worrying about an inverting yield curve. The business press is going to jump at the narrative that the yield curve is predicting an impending recession, especially as we head into the 2020 elections. Be careful with that interpretation. Historically an inverted yield curve has been a signal of a recession, that much is true. That was before the days of extensive central bank intervention in the bond markets, which has diluted the economic messages being sent by rates. The signal-to-noise ratio of the yield curve is at a historical low, and has been for the past 10 years.

Instead of signalling a recession, lower long-term rates are more likely to be good news for the US economy in general. Slower global growth will keep a lid on inflation, which will give the US economy more leeway to grow without building inflationary pressures. This has been a theme for the the past 30 years – emerging economies exporting deflation, and that allows the US economy to run hotter than it ordinarily would. And, unlike the late 90s or the mid 00s, we don’t have a stock / residential real estate bubble to worry about. Note that consumer confidence is back towards 18 year highs as well.

Quicken CEO Dan Gilbert had a stroke over the weekend. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

Author: Brent Nyitray

In the physical sciences, knowledge is cumulative. In the financial markets, it is cyclical View all posts by Brent Nyitray