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August 21, 2007

Bond Market Signals Danger Ahead
by Michael Swanson

Someone in the WallStreetWindow blog community made note Thursday on how the yield on a 3-month Treasury bill dropped hard that morning. In fact the drop was shocking. The next day the Fed lowered the discount rate and the stock market rallied. They lowered the rate to stabilize the drying up of liquidity in the financial credit markets and to help some large institutions that were heading into a financial black hole. As you can see from the chart below the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill collapsed yesterday. In the morning the 3-month T-bills fell 150 basis points down to 2.5% and then bounced back up to a little over 3% on the close. The yield closed down 18.51% in one day.

This is the biggest three day drop in the yield in the 3-month Treasury bill yield ever. In 1998 there was a flight to quality into three month Treasury bills that caused a big spike down in rates, but this move in the past few days has made that one look like nothing. The only time the yield dropped more Monday in one day is on the day of the 1987 stock market crash. The sharp drop in three month Treasury bill yields suggests that the Federal Reserve's discount rate cut on Friday has not stabilized the creditmarkets, especially since one month yields hit a 3 year low.

Investors are flocking to the safety of short term US government debt as liquidity continues to dry up in money market funds and commercial paper. The fear of further credit problems has made principal protection everyone's top focus especially for banks and money market funds that need to find a new place to invest after liquidity dried up in the commercial paper market.

Let me put it to you this way. There is a liquidity problem in the banking system. There are banks that are dying in mortgage backed securities in need of water - further lending from other banks. The Fed has injected billions of dollars into the banking system over the past few weeks and lowered the discount rate on Friday and it has had zero effect. Instead of making new loans with the money banks are hoarding it and using it to buy the safest thing possible - short-term Treasury bills. They are thereby causing the price of bonds to rise and their yield's to collapse.

The bond market is also factoring in rapid and huge cuts in interest rates over the next six months.

You have to ask yourself what is going to happen between now and the end of the year to cause the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates by over 2%?

Today the Senate Banking Committee is going to meet with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in closed doors to discuss the swings in the stock market. They are scared. These yields have fallen so much that you think they would be due for a bounce. If they don't bounce they could knock the stock market down with them, but hopefully they bounce from here. What I'm interested in is what happens over the next few weeks. Are people going to be more bullish in the Investor's Intelligence figures, because they think the Fed has saved them? Will Treasury bill yield's stay depressed and forecast a looming recession and rapid and Fed cuts?

One of my themes is that we are seeing things in the stock market happen internally that we have never seen before. Yesterday was another one of these things. And that scares me. At the moment I do not want to own anything until this crisis clears.

Saturday morning I produced a new podcast titled The Fed Saved the Market from a Crash, For Now. Listen to it by clicking here.

You can listen to future podcasts as soon as they are recorded, instead of 24 to 48 hours later when I post them on the website, by subscribing directly to the podcast's RSS feed by clicking here.

A RSS subscription allows you to receive the podcast through your Ipod or RSS feed reader. I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to the podcast because the more subscriptions to the RSS feed we have, the higher the podcast will be ranked in feed directories, thereby attracting more listeners to the program. We pay the costs for this podcast which keeps it free for you, so your subscription to the podcast would be a great way to help us out. And if you use podcast directories yourself, please don't hesitate to recommend us.

My goal in this most recent podcast was to wake you up to the risks in the stock market right now. Although I am becoming increasingly bearish on the broad market, I do think it very likely we'll see the market hold up for the next few weeks. I'm in cash and plan on waiting a few weeks before taking any positions on the long side. I might even take a short position at some point next month. If I was fully invested however, as I am sure most of you are, I would not sell now. But I would place stops on my positions - let Thursday be a lesson in the need for stops - and prepare myself to raise cash next month or hedge my positions at some point.

To listen to Saturday's podcast click here.

Michael Swanson,
WallStreetWindow.com

Disclaimer: Michael Swanson is the President of USA Capital, Inc., which provides management, support, and research for institutional investors, hedge funds, and mutual funds. The ChartWizard is also an employee of USA, Capital, Inc. Both Swanson and employees and associates of USA Capital, Inc. may have a position in securities which they mention on WallStreetWindow or any of its services. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. Under no circumstances should the information received from WallStreetWindow represent a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. WallStreetWindow contains the opinions of Swanson and the ChartWizard and is provided for informational purposes only. Neither Swanson, the ChartWizard, nor TimingWallstreet, Inc., which owns WallStreetWindow, provide individual investment advice and will not advise you personally concerning the nature, potential, value, or of any particular stock or investment strategy. To the extent that any of the information contained on WallSteetWindow may be deemed investment advice, such information is impersonal and not tailored to the investment needs of any specific person. Past results of WallStreetWindow, the ChartWizard, or Michael Swanson are not necessarily indicative of future performance.

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