This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Guest Post: Treasury Bears And Extinction Events
Submitted by JM
Treasury Bears and Extinction Events
The real meaning of a treasury bear market may not be a flight out of treasuries into another asset class. Rather it real import could be the lack of liquidity available anywhere for nearly any asset class.
History seldom repeats precisely, but it does rhyme as they say. And there are different types of bear markets: bear steepening and bear flattening. Despite the complications, history and imagination are our only guides.
Bear Market in Treasuries
First for some rough context, monthly yield curves for the 1977-1982 Bear market are shown against the yields curves of January 1977 and December 1986 (in red). What you see is a massive sell-off across the curve combined with flattening and inversion of the short end.
See the close up below for something more digestible. There was serious volatility, mostly at the wings. Yields on the 1Y exploded from 8.16% in June 1980 to 16.52% in September 1981. Yields on the 30Y moved from 9.17% in August 1979 to 14.68% in September 1981.
Takeaways
This section is premised on ample liquidity. It is all I’ve ever known in Treasuries, but it may not be appropriate.
- Roll-down wasn’t possible at the mid-curve, but it was possible to get roll-down on the front end. It was a high-risk play, because the volatility was amazing and would rip your face off. In just a couple of months, the whole curve could invert on you.
- You could make money shorting 20s30s, but I can’t imagine anybody doing that more than as a punt. I don’t know if traders then bought or sold things like a 10s20s30s butterfly.
- A major point is that you really had to stick your neck out to make money in Treasuries. The “old” adage now is nobody ever got fired for buying treasuries—although it isn’t quite true. Seems that there was likely an even older adage about treasuries and how awful they were.
Presumptions of Liquidity
Liquidity acts in a financial system like ample water, ambient temperature, and clean air act in an ecosystem. It makes trading strategies proliferate. Further, it makes meaningful intermediation possible, fostering the growth in high yield bonds and marketable loans. Yes, derivatives like vanilla stock options and others too.
A financial system without liquidity is like a tropical ecosystem dried into a desert. Without liquidity, it is an open question whether the arbitrage pricing revolution will outlast the antiquated mark-ups of reinsurers. Liquidity makes random processes stationary, which is crucial to make the probabilistic foundations of risk neutral pricing work. Is it intuitively possible to price (and even more buy and sell) credit and interest rate risk without some liquidity in the underlying? How can a bank generate carry when the curve is flat and there is no appreciable differential anywhere that has a minimum tolerance of liquidity?
I put together an impressionistic schema to convey my point about liquidity. It not only demonstrates instruments stop functioning, but even wholesale trading strategies have to be abandoned. Traders will not only have a limited palette of instruments; for survival, they will also have to simplify trading strategies to those that are proven across extremely wide environments. In financial markets, liquidity is what makes innovation possible. Innovation adds complexity and diversity to an ecosystem, but it doesn’t make the system robust. Even miniscule changes in environment cause life to revert back to sparsely populated rhythms.
»
- 14381 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Want to know a secret? The Fed owns all the USTs. ALL OF THEM.
I own some.
fail.
How does a Treasurie bond auction work nowadays?
Same way any auction works?
Is there some new auction process I am unaware of?
The Treasurie sells bonds to the direct bidder (the Fed), indirect bidder (foreign investment), and primary dealers (JPM et al). Then the PDs flip their share to the Fed T +1.
Lately, since November, indirect bidders have been flooding the market with USTs. The Fed buys those too.
Ok, so there are mutual funds that own USTs. I got you. But the Fed owns a mind boggling amount of USTs.
What's your point? Have you a point?
I'm not sure what you're trying to entertain.
The sun rises. So what?
Fair point from LH Bob. The FED's percentage holdings versus ROW are getting to be ridiculous.
Plus, as anyone with a good memnory remembers, for a lot of the latter half of last year, the UK bought UST hand-over-fist.
Right! So who was really buying? With all the swap lines and other "Dark" channels, who the crap is buying the crap?
Mr. LH makes a very fair point. Burgeoning purchases + indirect holdings via Japan/UK and other puppet/master entities of the FEd expose the Bond market for what it is.
YAP! Yet Another Ponzi.
ori
/san-onofre-33rd-parallel-4th-7th-feb-window-out-on-a-limb/
Did you misspell memory on purpose? Cuz I don't get it.
Same goes with FEd....
Black Helicopter just passed overhead! In India!!!!!!
I must have said something right, if memnory serves me.
ori
^No fucking way brother, must be the galactic alignment of the karma chi center sending signals your way.
Every time I see you spout your nonsense, I violently rip out some of my pubes just to cleanse my thoughts of your bullshit. But it's working less and less, so just please shut the fuck up.
What is a Dumb canadian doing pulling a brazilian with tweezers.
Numbnut!
ori
I must apologize for being awesome as a Canadian causing your rash spelling. Glad our women can still afford Brazilians! If your momnory can serve you right! Cheers :)
You Wall Street gurus fucking whack my brain upside and about the ears on occasion.
Numbnut ? ....who is this Chris Christie ?
Mnemosyne (memory) is the mother of the Muses in Greek mythology. Hegel called her the "absolute Muse".
"Amnesia" = "no memory"
Etc.
Very true.
However, Amnesia (an anti-muse) being the nemesis of Mnemosyne wanted to cause trouble and Mnemosyne fought back by concocting an antidote.
No one had a name for that antidote until the colorful French gave it the name of Déjà vu.
I recently discovered that it is actually possible to have Déjà vu and amnesia at the same time, while watching the honorable Corzine testifying in Congress.
@ ORI
I read the link and concluded that you are an alien, one excerpt from your link's writings enlightened me however:
"And poor old San Onofre has been boiling the waters of the Pacific for the better part of 40-50 years now."
I now know why people in California are different. All that radioactivity alters their mind. No more LSD or other psychedelics needed, as they get their dose at the beach and it's free.
When reading this wing nut; remember some people keep rattling on about buying the wonderful emerging market stock market in India; but for the real experience, go there. You'll never do anything but laugh at the idea of investing money there after that.
Mind boggling would be more palatable if there were a number on it.
X treasuries owned by the Fed. Y owned by China. Z owned by Japan. Q owned by mutual funds. B owned by banks.
The Fed doesn't own all 15.5 trillion of debt.
The Fed owns trillions of USTs. They will continue to buy at least of 1/3 of debt issued here on out. They will own close to 1/3 of all US debt soon.
The Fed is the US bank. The US Treasurie is selling its debt to its own bank. That doesn't make any sense from an investors standpoint. Why would I want to own the other part of the ponzi scheme?
I trade treasuries, and equities, but primarily commodities like gold-
http://tradeonfire.blogspot.com/
Hahaha! OMFG! You just concluded our debate with selfless advertising? Hahaha! Are you even licensed to trade?
Thaks for the laugh ;)
Yea...it's advertising.
I still don't want you looking at it.
Who do you want looking at it? Sickos like me?
Take a look at your byline buddy. If this were 1996 it might be relevant:
I have $100,000 as of 1/31/2012. I will document every trade on this site. I have 11 months to get to $1,000,000.
LULZ
Lo and behold you have a mantra! Get to $1MM buddy! Nothing else matters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyrWd_gfQNQ&ob=av2n
Don't ever look at my site. I dare you.
I double-dare you to be bored!
Bob, I've never read your blog.
And since you insist....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l91ISfcuzDw
You impute to him an outsized, or even all consuming passion for money; to the implied exclusion of humanist values, etc. Nowhere is this indicated by his website. The reason you did this is to defend your Ego against the possiblity, which horrifyingly enough for you is true; that he actually knows how to make money, which you do not. This is a standard ad hominem attack; it's instantly recognizable, it's a neurotic defense against your in-ability to make any money.
Debate? He's not debating with you. You made a ludicrously false statement; he proved that it was false; he has some, therefore the Fed does not have all; case proved; then the Website went on to prove it's the site of "intelligent people", by thumbing him down. You failed; you lost; you attempted to defend your stupid statement by sliding around the issue and saying, "Well, the Fed. owns some"; again the website proved it was the site of intelligent people by thumbing him down. There's nothing to debate about, you're just another mindless typist.
It's like monopoly, you have to own all parts of the ponzi for it to work. Think about it. What could be safer than U.S. Treasuries?
I'll tell you. Hiding under your porch, clutching your beans, bullets, and bullion, bitchez.
So I'll tell you what, you can't eat your gold, but what you can eat is some canned ham. Canned ham is both delicious and nutritious. It'll cleanse your colon, and the experience of armageddon will cleanse your soul.
I am a zerohedge legend, back to sell canned hamz bitchez to the goldbugs. You have all been calling out for me, so I have taken time out from my 9-5 as a canned ham salesman to bring love and understanding to the ZHers.
Like air and water, I complete you. I have been waiting in the wings protecting you. Now, I come with the canned hamz you will need to feed your family when the United States becomes Zimbabwe in 15 minutes and your gold goes to 50 bajillion trillion in thirteen seconds.
Of course, my buddies and I, Nadler, and JP Morgan are manipulating the price of silver because we have been short since 1999, and yet we have no losses. We are the fed. We are the illuminati. We steal from the poor, and buy our own beans, bullets, and bullion. Only we keep it all on a yacht. You should've stayed under your porch bitchez.
I AM Johnny Bravo, and all your canned hamz come from me, bitchez.
It's great to be back. I have so many interesting stories to tell. Now bow down.
You shitting me?
I'm too busy being the shit to shit you. Been lurking a long time, people still talk about me now and then, figured what the hell. Things are great. Howzit? I see your gold holding worked out!
Johnny
Holy shit man. Good to see ya.
Yeah, you know, all is well. Everything is going according to plan anyway.
Yeah we talk about you. Some of these fuckers try to throw shit under the bus without the moxie you have.
Are you still going to talk shit on gold? Or just the canned hamz? Either way is good for me.
Well, I have a lot less time these days, so I'll definitely be talking less shit, just in general. Also, I can't really trade public companies anymore much because of the nature of my job, so I don't really trade anything now except for the VIX (VXX). Buy when the VIX is 15, and let that money grow! :)
Of course, I love all the goldbugs, and truly hope that you guys do alright! I still think that the bubble in gold is ridiculous, but that's a matter of opinion.
Anyway, it's good to see you guys again too. I've been lurking here on and off since I left. I just got sick of the amateurs I see on here... at least be funny if you're going to be a troll, fellas. This "I hate the joos" shit I always see is embarassing for good trolls everywhere.
Then let's get right to it!
The nominal high was $1900, last year. But if we take the real high....
In 1980 gold traded to $880. $880 inflation adjusted in today's dollars is $3300.
We are in the middle of the historical range, and I will buy the middle of an asset I like EVERYTIME.
Wow...so passionate. What's causing you to work those busy fingers tonight?
Well, I just figured I'd make an "old-fashoned" post to PROVE it was me, but idiots like akak don't get it.
that mofo used to call me Nadler every day (still don't know who THAT is, but I included him as proof of my identity. lol)
Jonny Bravo is back? great to see your still hanging around here and still an ass clown.
Hey thanks. Fun is fun! Haha.
I remember you from the 70's man. Ham got very expensive and my wages didn't keep pace with rising prices. Lots of people out of work then too. Our money became worthless overnight. Nixon/Ford and Carter did their best work. Do you think it will be as bad this time round or worse?
Much, much, much worse. Dow to 500, FEMA concentration camps, Joos running the illumanti-controlled-Rothschild controlled JP Morgan shorts on silver! Suge Knight will run the media! Oh, the humanity! I got bullets, I got bullion, but more importantly, I got the canned hamz. You know what else I have? I have bean-o. When we all go back to bartering for goods, I'm gonna trade bean-o to all the people with beans instead of canned hamz! I'll make a fortune in the new economy!!! Hahahaha!!!
The only question is: How many fiatscos will an ounce of gold be worth by then? 8000000000000?!?!? Do you remember The Reich? That came after hyper-inflation too! And then there was Zimbabwe! That's what happens when you print money! You become a backwards third world African country!
Gold is the only real money! It's held its value throughout time.
It's shiny! It's metal! And you can eat it! Me and my friends ate some gold shavings on our mousse one time! See, you CAN eat it! I stopped paying my mortgage and spent all my money on gold, and now I own three houses! Yeah boyee!
Plus, now I have the Mr. T style necklace and Tupac rings! I'm not going to attract any attention in the apocalypse because I'll be under my porch. Of course, my porch will overlook 900 acres of quality Montana farm land! I'll plant all my crops, and clean my shotgun under my porch yo.
So it all depends on what your definition of bad is. Sure, 99.9999% of people are all gonna die, but I'm one of the smart ones who will live! And I'll steal all your ferraris bitchez! Be very afraid! Dow to 200, Oil to 90000000, and a boogey man across the street! Even worse though, there's Johnny, looking under your porch when you're asleep, stealing all your gold, bitchez!
Another HamyWanger/BillionDollarAnus wannabe .... (sigh).
This shtick is growing tiresome.
Bite your toungue.
I could say that you're another tmosley wannabe (even though it's a lot more likely that you two are the same poster.)
I AM Johnny Bravo. Believe that.
I am your worst nightmare.
Anyone that sez, "I am your worst nightmare" is OK by me.
If find it fascinating that this "legend" of ZH ( "Can Hamz Bitchez" or "Johnny Bravo") thinks he knows everything about anything. Go right ahead sir and buy all the canned hamz you want, but wtf do you think us gold and silver bitchez have been doing other than buying pm's? that's right, buying spam, tuna, beef jerky, rice, flour, sugar, SALT; especially salt, anything in a can and that includes canned hamz. You think all we do is sit on and look at our silver/gold and that's all we think about. It's arrogant thinking that gave us this POS of a president. Besides, if joos run the world what makes you think they are going to want any part of your hamz? Or did you forget that little thing about joos and pork. All that ham will be good for is deterring Muslims which if you think about it Islam is a religion that begins with I and ends in slam. Before you get all high and mighty with yourself you may want to remember that you to will have to live in this country when it emplodes and if OWS taught you anything is that the people are tired of greedy extorting mofo's like you and they will enact their revenge upon those that behave in such a manner. Try getting a bj for some canned hamz. If you do you better use it for whoever has the most penicilln to clear that up.
You missed the critical link in the chain.
Canned hamz = gold = bjs.
But if you JUST have gold, you won't be able to eat at all, so you won't have any gold to barter. You'll have to trade some for canned ham. If you have canned hams AND gold, you can have your skin flute played.
If you think you're gonna STEAL my canned hams, well, you'll pry it out of my cold, dead, hands! But that won't be happening. My moat of sharks that I dig around my house will keep pesky evildoers like you away!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
yeah, well, that's just. like, your opinion, man.
Hey Rust-e, where have you been hiding? How is Le Afrique?
ori
"The website for intelligent people"; I think I'll go find the website for stupid people, I can't stand this moronic bullshit any longer.
hey R_S!
i'm just trolololling for gold and silver currencies in more states, BiCheZ!
States seek currencies made of silver and gold | Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
carry on!
HELL YEAH! I want that!
Um.. I think a better way to describe it might be the Fed is a privately held bank that is endowed by Congress with the right to create credit money out of thin air to purchase US obligations. Regardless of it's alleged charter, it operates with the express purpose to keep the debt money and fractional reserve banking system functioning and expanding and the US government (taxpayer) in debt.
does this include the European Central Bank as well? I thought such activities were expressly forbidden under its charter? No? Odd. This sounds awfully familiar to the problems the USA had with Alexander Hamilton's "Bank of the United States."
Yes, officially, no primary market buying by the ECB, but buying into the auction and a little word here and there, how much at what limit you are going to buy hours after the auction in the secondary market equally does the job, Occurred heavily in Nov and early Dec of last year. A quiet period two days before and after auctions for OM operations in the respective instrument would have been the effective enforcement of the charter.
Fed - ECB.. two branches of the same banking operation.. same with IMF.
IMF is the new vogue.. trendy storefront operation for the NWO/PTB.. good growth opportunity.
The next time some weasely little Fed chair is asked "Is gold money?", and he says no, someone should ask him to explain this:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/gold.htm
BTW.. when I think about this CF of a world economy and how "they" are going to try to "fix" it, I can't help but think about 1933 and FDR and the migration of gold from local banks to a central bank.
Another interesting question to ask yourself.. "Who owns the gold that allegedly exists in Fort Knox?"
The History Channel is running a piece on Fort Knox (starting tonight, I think).. they will probably explore that.
Here are some numbers. These are from Sep 2011, not all the latest are out yet. Of the total (Sep 2011) of $14790.3B:
Federal Reserve & Intergovernmental - 6220
Foreign Total - 4500.8, of which are notable the following:
China - 1132.6
Japan - 1038.9
UK - 429.4
Oil Exporters - 232
All other foreign are smaller than this
Private Pension Funds - 656.2
Mutual Funds - 653.5
State & Local Govt - 484.4
Depository Institutions - 284.5
Insurance Companies - 250.1
US Savings Bonds - 186
State & Local Govt Pension Funds - 186
and of course "Other" - 921.2
The most significant growth in the last 10 years has been in Private Pension Funds and Foreign. However, if you looked at the Federal Reserve as separate from government entities (which is appropriate as it is not a government entity) then the Federal Reserve portion has had the largest growth recently.
And selling of USTs has been prominent since November with no let up.
Mr Simple gets it wrong again.
If I auction my home I don't have unlimted money to prop up the price of my asset. Besides people might complain if say eBay allowed sellers unlimited bids on their items?
Similarly...
I don't get to put for example an iPad on eBay that I don't have and then take money from you and promise to pay you back later at iPad plus 0.02% Only I just keep auctioning more stuff I don't have and promise to pay you back later.
Oh auctions normally need like a proper market for price discovery? Instead of politubro central planning committe determining how much twisting is required to get the right level of planned interest rates? Maybe Ben Bernanke could get some help from ex Soviet or North Korean central planners?
Try http://www.treasurydirect.gov/ you can even participate yourself...
If you can outbid Japanese housewives.
There are some treasuries out there that are supposedly 'mine' but it certainly doesn't feel like I own them. Physical silver and gold in your hand feels a lot different. That's just me.
Anywho, how about that first graph huh?
You know what feels good in my hand? Some slimy canned ham. I eat it like it's going out of style. The apocalypse is coming. The sky is falling. The dollar will lose all of its value tomorrow. The Dow will go to 160000, and gold will be 850000. I won't trade my gold, unless you have some canned ham for me.
Beans, bullets, bullion? I have a fourth B. Bitches. With canned ham, I'll have all the bitches, and be repopulating the Earth.
You'll have beans. What are you gonna do? Fart on a chick?
I have the master plan for when the dollar loses all of its value tomorrow, and we become monkeys throwing poo out of our windows at each other. I'll trade my canned hamz for your gold, bitchez. Then, I'll trade my gold for your women, and the world will be repopulated with little Bravos.
Of course, how can you think that a world full of Bravos is a bad thing? Why... it's like having a handful of gold - only a lot brighter and shinier, and gets a lot more women!
So while you can't eat gold, you can eat canned hamz. Get some, suckas! Only 6 oz. of silver, or premium quality sticky icky icky. Take your pick. While you were hiding under your porches stockpiling gold, I was busy cornering the market on some canned hamz. I AM the Spam corporation. I AM the hate you try to hide.
Me and my old school homey Nadler are gonna own you. You should've stayed under your porchez, bitchez.
I AM Johnny Bravo, and all your gold belong to me.
Ham and spam are seriously UNDERrated. Put that stuff on a piece of bread with some mustard and it is dee-lish.
Re: your comment and I AM the hate you try to hide.
Are you rocking out to Metallica again? I don't care what anyone sez - the Black Album rules!
Who talks shit on the Black Album?
Burnouts from my 8th grade class. And some people who fancy themselves true metalheads to this day. And people for whom trav7777's racial message resonates.
(that last one was not needed. I just want a reply from trav as to why platinum > silver.)
On a long enough timeline, all precious metals...
Trade for spam? Yeah, just talk to pusherman above.
As far as anyone who wants to rip on the Black Album, they are idiots. Metal Ica RULEZ!
Im addicted to the chaos. I dont remember where I was when I realized life was a game. Im doing you a favor as Im taking all your money. I guess I should feel sorry but I dont even trust me. Broken down feeling naked leaving me unfufilled. Promising compromise, championing mediocracy.
Megadeath rules.
Yeah man, Megadeth was so cool when I was a (little) kid. I used to love them.
The black album was the pinnacle, right before Metallica's descent. Personally, I prefer Master of Puppets over all albums, but the black album was before they sold out and made weak ass alterna-metal.
They came out with Load, and I stopped listening to them.
Then they started crying about people downloading music, and now I think that James Hetfield can go fuck himself before bears eat him.
You're alright.
"I am the hate you try to hide (and I control you!)" - Trent Reznor
I take you where you want to go.
I give you all you need to know.
I'm Mr. Self Destruct.
I AM Johnny Bravo, and all your gold belong to me.
I AM Johnny Bravo, and all your are gold belong to me.
backwards is the new forwards
This is only a poor imposter --- not even remotely close to the style of the original JohnnyBravo/MasterBater.
For one thing, the guy NEVER rambled on to that extent --- he was always short and to the point. For another, gold and "gold bugs" were the lightning rod of his animosity, and the grist that poured from his troll mill consisted virtually entirely of dishonest, disinformational attacks on both, not some loquacious rapsodizing about canned hams. Furthermore, he was notably vicious in his personal attacks against individual posters, some of whom are still here, even in this thread, and one would expect JB, if it were really him, to acknowledge them. He was always noted for literally bombarding threads with literally dozens of trollish posts, crowding out almost everyone else's, not merely popping in to drop two or three as he did here.
I knew JohnnyBravo, I battled with JohnnyBravo, and you, sir, are no JohnnyBravo.
First of all, how in the hell do you know who I am?
Second of all, I can quite assuredly say that I AM Johnny Bravo.
Third, I never made personal attacks on people until they made personal attacks on me.
Fourth, I'm the person who coined the term bitchez with a Z on this site. I used to always post and go "goled bitchez" to make fun of retarded goldbugs everywhere. That was back when you all said "bitches." Somehow, the Z stuck.
Fifth, the canned hamz thing is proof that I'm Johnny Bravo. If you actually did read my posts (instead of taking up for your troll butt buddy tmosley all the time) you would have noticed that even my older posts talked about hiding under my porch with canned hamz waiting for the United States to become Zimbabwe.
Sixth, check my IP address. It's from the same IP as Bravo. Also, it's from Colorado, which you will remember is Bravo's home. How would I know that if I wasn't Bravo?
I left ZH when I said that if gold went above 1400, I would leave. I stayed gone. However, I lurk here and I've noticed people calling for me, asking for me to post.
I could give 100000 types of proof that I'm the real deal. You sir, are merely speculating, and are horribly wrong.
The canned hamz thing is a total homage to my old posts, and if you don't see that, you need to look closer.
Look, I'll just put it this way:
Check my DNA. It's all over your mom's face.
Put down the keyboard, walk upstairs, and ask your mom about it.
I am Johnny Bravo, the accountant and information systems professor, seller of canned hamz, from Colorado. I trade VIX, I'm 30 years old, and I used to always brag about how I didn't need a job because I traded. I didn't, but I ended up getting one anyway, which is another reason why I stopped posting.
..."Check my DNA. It's all over your mom's face."
lmao, I don't care who you are that is funny.
More proof that I'm Bravo:
One of the last things I used to make fun of you for was how you said that when gold hit 25000, you should all have a ZH convention. I still laugh about that shit.
Or how this site gave a 2000 dollar target for gold in 2010, which was the year I left here. (August 2010 to be exact.) (Note that it is now 2012, and gold still isn't 2000, much less 25000)
Oh, and my avatar as Bravo was first MasterBates' black swan, and then I changed it to a black Apple logo that said "Think Fascist". How would I even know about MasterBates?
I'm done proving myself. Either believe it or not.
"But I am Rock Quarry"...
~Gus Schultz (Flintstones)
Welcome back Bravo, my work here is done!
Buried canned ham in the backyard and goled to $100 Bitchez!
Card-Hamz-Bitchez
Nothing says respect like some nut-huggin-ass bitchez!!
Much love to ya buddy.
Welcome back Bravo!!!
Goled to $2500 Bitchez! Its just a matter of time...
Thanks Hulk! I've missed you all. I really still don't have time to post, but I always read here.
I'm not really that personally involved in the opinion of gold anymore, but I'd say that you might be right.
Then again, the economy is turning and people might liquidate "safer" assets for 17 6-bedroom McMansions again, so you never know what can happen to goled!
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but when I read a comment like this I always laugh...
"I've missed you all. I really still don't have time to post, but I always read here."
Jesus Tapdancing Christ ~ I don't know what the average # of comments per article there are at ZH, but my browser is set to look at 90 per page & I often get to 2-3 (or more pages)...
By logic, if I ALWAYS read here (& to that degree), & the time required to do so, I figure I could type:
"Cand-Hamz-Bitchez"
at least a couple of dozen times... You must be the slowest MFing typist in the world! (I mean that in the nicest way possible)...
Well, I don't like getting into troll wars, especially at work, which is where I always am, if not with my family...
Awww, come on. Even I voted up the fake Bravo!!
Although, I can see why somebody might vote down the fake Bravo. I mean, that's like sacreligious and stuff.
That's like making a screen name that says JeBus. And you don't mock your lord and savior, nor do you mock Johnny Bravo. You say your prayers, take your vitamins, and wear red and yellow clothing, brother.
u been away awhile man...there are actually SILVERbugz now...they are even kookier than the gold bugs. Yer gonna have fun with them because they sho' is stupid
Aren't you a platinum bug?
If so, why are platinum bugs > silver bugs? Seems like if we are fortunate enough to be here 10 years from now, both PT and AG will be much higher.
Why hate when when you can appreciate?
WHen did Trav develope such a disdain for silver? I mean, I know he always talks trash, but like this? Did Tmos actually push your buttons Trav? Shit man, don't let that guy ruffle your feathers man.
tmosley = akak. Either that, or tmosley = akak's lover.
Either way... haha.
How do you know that?
Sicko
Silverbugz??
You mean "Silver dropped from 50 to 47, so back up the truck bitchez!!! I'm all in?!?!"
LOL at all of the bugz.
Shove it.
This Silver bug is stacking at any price right fucking now. One day it will pay off.
I so much share your view on PMs and soo to become absurdly inflated equity prices. What I don't understand, absent the counterparty risk, I would assume, long-dated way out of the money SPX calls with a strike like 4,000 provide the same insurance effect to price inflation / asset value deflation with - due to close to zero premia - a lot less risk of buing into a PM bubble, mid-term manipulation etc.
Sure, holding PMs will be a 'relatively' good trade in the medium term, but IMHO the myth about only asset of absolute value is logically flawed. Recently accelerating demand be it due to political, strategic or emotional reasons, is only the beginning of subjective relative value attribution. Once notable inflation sets in, this distortion accelerates, lowering PM's utility as storage of wealth owing to a lack of perceived absolute value. Besides, I would think many people miss the weakness of looking at PMs in terms of USD-based valuations. That per se makes it a relative play. In terms of abolute value, one would have to be interested in its buying power on the day the dollar is buried. This, however, is totally unforseeable: The feds have confiscated all privately held gold not even a century ago, no one can assess the accumulation/total distribution bias or even the motives, sovereigns and central banks as holders of the vast majority of available gold will have on day x, and finally, the distribution of PMs across income classes will add to the relativity of value on day x ('luxury goods' will become relatively more expensive in terms of gold, whereas the essentials for the masses to survive will be relatively less expensive in gold terms).
So, wiith all that, PM will sure be a good, speculative medium to long term trade, but the story behind it pulling in more and more followers every day to me seems flawed.
The second graph needs only June 1980, September 1981, August 1979 and September 1981 in order for the author to make the point. The graphic, as is, makes the reader work to find these dates, and I did not succeed.
Wrong Mr Simple. It's a government instrument that they can
The Government gives you the "illusion of ownership" in reality they pwn you LOL
Best of luck with your paper "owenership" hahahahaha
OT: Have you seen this?
Military drone with no human control
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/military-drone-with-no-hum...
If my name was Sarah Conner, I'd be getting nervous right about now.
is "human control" an oxymoron?
no. "they just don't talk about it as much." and in case your wondering "the drone still needs something on the ground to tell it what to shoot." that's called....(drum roll please)...."a HUMAN."
It might help if you would actually read the article prior to posting a comment. "No human control from the ground"! Does anyone really think these things won't find their way into the arsenal of the "police" here in the U.S. at some point? What kind of an asshole would design something like this?
From the article: "A new aircraft from Northrop Grumman might make the idea of “robot overlords” seem uncomfortably real. The X-47B is a completely unmanned drone. Meaning, not only no pilot but no human control from the ground. Its missions are initially planned by humans but once these things are airborne they are guided and controlled by on-board computers.
Unmanned military drones, as we’ve come to know them, are controlled by pilots from a chair maybe halfway around the world. It might seem video-game like, providing such a great distance between the pilot and the reality of dropping bombs on real places and people. But at least there’s a human at the controls somewhere, giving the order to fire. Now with the X-47B it will be the decision of an algorithm based on perceived threats that are described by sensors. So it begs the question, where is the accountability if something goes horribly wrong?"
http://lolfed.com/wp-content/uploads/High-Frequency-Terminations.jpg
Hey great, now the politicians can drop bombs anywhere, cause any collateral damage they want, and there is no accountability.
What was that definition of terrorism again?
Maybe they can connect some high-frequency algo bots to the drones and see what happens.
Or maybe they can round us all up, put us on trains, round up all of our gold, and we can worship the NWO!
You can't get underneath my tin hat with your "satellites". The moon landing was faked, bitchez!
The trend is and has been inevitable at least since 1990. We had these autonomous vehicles in the 1970s, albeit with less mission time. In the 1990s came human-in-the-loop (remotely). The teraflops of onboard processing will allow capabilities far beyond any human pilot, who becomes useless and vulnerable cargo in combat.
teraflops? WTH u smokin? Even the cell ain't got that kind of hp
Who the fuck is Sarah ConnEr?
So, you seem to be saying, the FED jacking with the economy screws up market forces and the invisible hand (?).
all the Fed can really do is print money or not...
Print too much of it & it'll eventually find a way to tangle itself up so tightly (like the lines on some of those graphs), that it's as if it didn't exist at all...
war has always been the origin of sovereign borrowing...just ask the medicis
Are they the same as the Marovaginas?
they smell worse
horrible
Huh?
Nice piece.
RE: "stuff I'd like to know about"
I betcha there'd be really good insights if you can look mainly at the recent history of financial legal decisions. It's only 50 years of expensive case-law and changes to tax legislation.
The Fed will always bid on Treasuries and always prop them up. The Treasury market is just a way of pretending we are not printing the money the government is spending. It is just a facade on a printing press. It is not a liquidity drain. It is a liquidity spewer because the Fed will buy everything. You can not think of the Treasury market as a market to go long or short. It is a process by which the government and bankers get free money. You have to get out of the paradigm of a market. The Fed wants all the Treasuries and will bid them up. Treasuries the Fed owns do not cost the governent any interest because they pay most of it back to the Treasury.
The only way to play this entire mess is to bet on a weaker Dollar vs a stronger currency. And since all paper is the Dollar due to central banker cooperation, you can only buy gold. That is the only bet if you are against Treasuries. Treasuries will only decline in purchasing power, not nominal value.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/325852-why-it-may-finally-be-safe-to-sho...
One of the factors to consider in regards to the Fed prop job of UST prices is that the Social Security System is no longer a big buyer. That is quite different from the situation in the periods covered by the charts above. It now shows up on the Fed balance sheet.
Well ain't that nice?
http://nosint.blogspot.com/2012/02/france-to-send-nuclear-aircraft-carri...
France to send nuclear aircraft carrier to Persian GulfIt is expected that in March-April at least four U.S. and French aircraft carrier battle groups will be placed in East of Persian Gulf, according to Interfax.
Sunday in Asia.
I'll stick with the " EPIPHANY".//
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ron-paul-supporter-files-lawsuit-agai...
I had an injured foot one time. It hurts like heck.
Looks like a low volume thread so I thought I would thank ZH and great posters (especially the highly entertaining ones) for a great week of reporting and free education. Peace.
Golf Clap on the comment. May I remind everyone that there is a donation button and you are free to give money to show your support too.
Indeed. I donated Jan 1 of this year....I encourage others to donate as well.
Yields on the 30Y moved from 9.17% in August 1979 to 14.68% in September 1981.
LOL if that were to happen today, the FED would lose $1.1 trillion +...
<<<<<<-------------Test this with your phone/tablet QR scanner
Need some ZH feedback. Testing encryption code w/QR.
Thanks. Sorry to highjack thread. Just a pet project. Your feedback is appreciated
Is all the white space necessary? You have a 40px by 40px box to work with.
Here's a project I made: it's a script to make zerohedge more readable. It works in chrome or firefox+greasemonkey. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/124836
Thanks. It's not really meant to be used as a 40px 40px. Need to create an account to upload full image {Sigh} Whip up a fake photo account soon.
My project is about blah,blah, blah, blah blah security. Both of my devices were not able to pick up my image on ZH, failed attempt on my part. My actual goal was to have someone read the QR code and try to decode message. Quite a blah,blah, blah, blah blah application. Need the best folks to hack my prototype.
Going to bed, tomorrow is another day.
Thank you for your reply.
One particular problem that bothers me is that on iPad that right hand panel usually overlaps graphs and photos, really annoying.
Although AFAIK that can't be solved with a FF or Chrome script (because it's on iPad).
Hmm, what is it called when the world is awash in liquidity and nobody wishes to buy zero yielding assets, leaving only one central, unregulated and unaccountable buyer of government debt?
Side note: Yes, BD, I recognize that you also own treasuries. When you go to sell them, what is your expected impact on the yield of said assets, compared to a low to moderate dump by the Fed?
Side, Side note: I don't feel good about agreeing with Robo, but this has to be bullish for risk assets. Ben told grandma yesterday to grow a pair and buy risk if she wants yield/return.
This is unrelated but I thought it was hilarious.
I think the baltic index may have hit bottom.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/commodity-ship-is-hired-at-zero...
Oh, and 10 basis point decline on a ten year at 1.80 is 0.91% or 6 months return. Man that must hurt, bonds aren't worth the risk. Better money market even at 0.5%.
The BDI could be bottoming. It only decreased by 4 today. Monday could be up! http://www.dryships.com/pages/report.asp
Awww, stealing my links.
I'm touched ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fI-dGWT74
You own Dryships Inc?
Hmm. Let's do it old skool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zavgk2_BJs&feature=related
That's High and Dry Ships to you.
I don't think it bottomed, I think it sank.
Money market at .5%? All well and good except they are invested in the instruments that get hammered with rate rises, which means the money market fund might produce a negative yield, like in 2008.
Better than CDs.
No money market funds follow rates up quite quickly. They are commercial paper and short term debt.
If a money market fund loses one cent there is no better place to be. Even Lehman's fund returned 99 cents in the end, can't say that about much else in 08.
I swear to God. Tyler is right.
Today was desperate and transparent textbook bully. Pm's cannot appear as an alternative. The deliveries would break the inventory or should I say imaginary inventory, the shipping costs alone scare them in large consistent numbers, they just do what they have to do daily, any huge aberration would overwhelm, but no, typical weekly scare tactic now , I'm an amateur and I saw the quick bear raid in the short term. Eager is a bad aspect, now I'm going to eat my dinner good night bitchezzzzz zuh zuhhh
Notice nobody even talks about 'Bond Vigiantes' anymore. They don't even rate a whisper.
I'm pretty sure that all Bond Vigilantes have been safely renditioned to Gitmo.
If the Fed is there to permabid, how do the BVs unleash their fury?
In a utopia there is no need for "Vigilantes". Everyone learns to stop worrying and love the Fed.
It's tough to be "VIGILANT", when The helicoptor is overhead!