Too Quiet?
Is it too quiet?
That question came up again and again over the past two weeks, a period during which equities' ascent continued, but at a more deliberate rate following a raucous four-week rally.
The figure below, which regular readers may recognize from a December 3 article, is updated through Monday. Things have picked up a little, but not much. This is one of the calmer periods we've seen this year on a simple measure of outcome distributions.
That's conducive to (indeed is in some sens
Not really on point with the post, but just putting this here.
Treasury issuance in the last few quarters has been very skewed to bills over coupons, like by 6:1 or 10:1. Much more skewed than I think has been typical. Setser has some pertinent charts. I don’t know why this is. The official line (refer back to “America is Not A Corporation”) is that Treasury issues the mix of bills and coupons necessary for smooth functioning of the financial system. Nevertheless, the simplistic thought is that perhaps Treasury is trying to not overrun demand for coupons?
Can / will Treasury keep issuing bills over coupons at the current ratio? It seems that may be as large a factor in term premium and 10Y yield as speculation over whether and when the Fed will start insurance cuts.