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Today's POMO: Fed Buys Back Over $1 Billion In 30 Year Treasuries

Tyler Durden's picture




The Fed's fix for a few billions bonds was satisfied once again, after taking a brief respite yesterday. In today's POMO, $2.3 billion bonds was repurchased, with well over $1 billion around the year 30 maturity. CUSIP QB7 was a May 7, 2009 issue: primary dealers can breathe a sigh of relief that they have to hold $353 million less of this, courtesy of the US taxpayer/$ printing press.

 




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Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:20 | Link to Comment whopper
whopper's picture

Absolutely, we are not monetizing the debt.

Timmy Geithner

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:26 | Link to Comment Hansel
Hansel's picture

C'mon.  $1 Bil isn't even money, is it?

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:25 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:21 | Link to Comment Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

It doesn't matter if the Fed is playing games. It only matters if others care if the Fed is playing games.

As long as people can make money off this corruption, the question of "fair" or corrupt" or "lies" is moot.

The cry for justice won't come from those who profit from the illegal activity. When everyone has their fingers in the pot, who in their right mind would demand the pot be taken away?

This is the central idea of the Mafia. Everyone has an interest in keeping the racket going. The common interest of the corrupt (as well as the pigeons picking up crumbs) is for more of the same.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:35 | Link to Comment George Orwell
George Orwell's picture

That's why I think this whole mess (great depression II) will end in a nuclear war and a second american revolution.  There's no way we can pay off the debt.  Period.  The only way is to print our way out of it and launch the nukes at China.  The latter is necessary because oil will be trading at $500 a barrel and countries do go to WAR over it.

 

George Orwell

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:14 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:36 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

Well said.  I know in the MBS market all the players are more than happy to have the Fed printing money to support them in the short term.  At 7% mortgage rates there would be a lot fewer refis, and therefore a lot fewer MBS traders, post-closing ops folks, QRM support folks, etc.  Without the Fed printing many of them would be out of a job, why worry about what the money printing is doing to the country, that is for others to worry about, isn't it?

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:31 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:40 | Link to Comment TwoJacks
TwoJacks's picture

Thank you for playing. You now know more about our monetary system than 99.9999% of the American populous.

 

And one step further. The Fed has to buy it because no one else wants most of it right now. Otherwise, rates on those bonds would fly higher than the market has lately.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:51 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:51 | Link to Comment Assetman
Assetman's picture

Very nice replies.

To add to the mix, all this mysterious purchasing (monitizing) of Treasuries is supposedly going to end in October.  Then the auctions will start getting fun.

That won't take away from what the Fed is still doing with Agency MBS.  We still have at least a $trillion of the Fed pissing away to buy assets that are essentially worthless sheets of electronic paper.

It warms my cockels to know that Ben and Timmy are in charge of things.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 14:35 | Link to Comment Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

This is precisely why the market will drop in the fall. With the liquidity party over, who is going to pump the market and where will the money to pump the market come from?

Now that the Treasury has issued most of the paper it needs for the next 6 months, time for a little down draft in equities to scare the sheep into buying that very same paper.

Rinse and repeat until everyone is exhausted and broke. Except those that understand how to play the game.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:29 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 14:38 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:40 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

It's not even a gentlemen's agreement / conspiracy theory (except in a few instances, like that particular 7 year auction - THAT was pure manipulation IMHO) - the market knows the Fed will backstop $X dollars of purchases, so they feel mighty comfy buying at auction knowing the Fed will be there to take the bonds off their hands.

the MBS market is even more ridiculous, since you sell forward your pipeline, you know before the loans are even closed that the Fed will be buying, and you have agreed on a price.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:42 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:32 | Link to Comment deadhead
deadhead's picture

Thank you very much for keeping on top of this TD. 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:37 | Link to Comment TwoJacks
TwoJacks's picture

What about QC5 on the same page? Wasn't that a 30-yr just issued last week, 8/15/39?  How else do you get to 8/15/39 if it's not a 30-yr?

That's 539$M of that puppy.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:28 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:36 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:40 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:41 | Link to Comment Stevm30
Stevm30's picture

Nobody else wants long term US debt, so why should taxpayers be forced to buy it?  When the inevitable high interest rates come, this debt will lose a substantial portion of its value.  The Federal reserve is investing our money in a "toxic asset".  To what end?  How can you argue that the FED should be independent when it's doing these kinds of things with our money? 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:51 | Link to Comment dark pools of soros
dark pools of soros's picture

the taxpayers haven't bought anything in atleast 10 years... we are still paying off the first Iraq war binge 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:44 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:46 | Link to Comment BM (not verified)
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:38 | Link to Comment frank
frank's picture

4.744 bid to cover here is much worse (footnote #5 at the very bottom of the page):

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2009/R_20090819_1.pdf

 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:58 | Link to Comment Project Mayhem
Project Mayhem's picture

Snake eats tail.  More at 11.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:01 | Link to Comment mattco
mattco's picture

ROFLMAO!

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:03 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:40 | Link to Comment feeb
feeb's picture

That's the Energizer Bunny to you! ;)

I rarely post, but I must take a moment to laud TD and crew. This site is an absolutely amazing, invaluable resource. I get a big warm fuzzy every day when I read the original research and often hilarious, insightful comments by the great community on here.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:09 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:48 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:57 | Link to Comment Assetman
Assetman's picture

Mmmmm.... nice tail.... tastes like chicken.

I'm guessing you are betting for the "end of the Mayan calendar" thing for all hell to break loose.

It's as good as time as any... as we may get a bonus of either (a) aliens or (b) Jesus coming to make an Earthly visit.

I'm sure I just offended 75% or more of the global population.  It was a joke, folks!

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 15:28 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:12 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:13 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:26 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:39 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

Check this out, I usually don't look at the agency debt monetization, but look how much they did last Friday.

http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/pomo/display/index.cfm?showmore=1&opertype...

And you wonder why those shares have been rising - once the debt is in the Fed's hands, who knows if they will even ask to be paid back?

5.6B is the largest of those operations to date.

Kind of funny how there is all this uproar over $3B in cash for clunkers, then on Friday the Fed prints 5.6B to buy agency debt and it isn't noticed.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:10 | Link to Comment Oso
Oso's picture

absolutely great post, thanks for the link.  there is no such thing as coincidence in the financial world.  that SPX hit record highs on the year the same week the Fed goes nuts with agency purchases is no_coincidence.

 

F'n-A.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 14:01 | Link to Comment Assetman
Assetman's picture

But there's no secret there... the Fed is devoted to buying $1.25 trillion of agency debt by the end of the year-- and my understanding is it will extend into 2010.

A $5.6 billion purchase is just one of many more steps to sweep worthless assets under the rug and into the lap of the taxpayer.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 15:05 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

actually it is 1.25T of agency MBS, and 200B of agency debt.

My point was I don't pay much attention to the agency debt market, I was just surprised that they spent almost 3% of their allotment in a single deal, it was a much bigger purchase than the previous deals.

I suspect it had something to do with Fannie's reopening one of their notes today.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:55 | Link to Comment Printfaster
Printfaster's picture

$1B is just noise.  What is significant is that someone the fed likes had a hole burning in their pocket.  They could not find a buyer for this  30 year crap, or it was a simple payoff for sucking all the 30 year in one day when issued.

Still what it says is that the returner of the 30 year did not want this hot potatoe (an alternate spelling, the way the teacher spelled it who handed it to Dan Quayle).

 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 12:59 | Link to Comment Printfaster
Printfaster's picture

OK, you circled the number from May, but more interesting is the $539B from last week.

What is going on Tyler?  Are you now spinning and shilling for GS and the Fed?

 

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 13:06 | Link to Comment ghostfaceinvestah
ghostfaceinvestah's picture

that is a pretty big miss.  Maybe TD hired the "Judge" to edit these posts.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 14:22 | Link to Comment Terminal Frost
Terminal Frost's picture

I can't wait until I get to pay off my mortgage in full with what it costs to buy a loaf of bread.  That is going to be AWESOME.

Wed, 08/26/2009 - 14:35 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 23:16 | Link to Comment YouTrd (not verified)
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 15:26 | Link to Comment dcb
dcb's picture

if you were a primary dealer and bought the bons last wek, since interst rates have gone down the bonds are now worth more. the bank sell them bakc to treasury and instand profits for banks to inject into the market and create asset bubbles.

 

also the profit means 44% percent of it gets to go directly into bankers pockets as bonus. that's the disgusting part. those who are buying the bonds know the fed will buy the back

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