Business

One day after a mediocre, tailing 10Y reopening, the Treasury held its last Treasury auction for the week, selling $12 billion in 30Y bonds at a yield of 2.936%, above May's 2.87% and the highest since 3.050% in May, tailing the When Issued of 2.926% by 1 basis point. This was the 4th tailing 30Y auction in the past 5.

The internals were unremarkable: the bid-to-cover of 2.31 was virtually unchanged from last month's 2.32, but above the 6 month average of 2.27%. Total bids of $27.9b for $12.3b in bonds sold vs $27.8b in bids for $12.0b in bonds sold at the previous auction

Authored by Yves Smith via Naked Capitalism blog,

The war on cash is escalating. A big driver isn’t central banks who want to be able to inflict negative interest rates on savers, or Treasuries who see cash transactions as hiding revenues from their tax collectors, but the payment networks that want to kill cash (and checks!) as competitors to their oh so terrific (and fee-gouging) credit and debit cards.

However, one bit of good news is there doesn’t appear to be much enthusiasm on the buyer, as in merchant, end.

US equity markets are ramping higher (aside from Small Caps) this morning as it appears the word "uncertain" - uttered ubiquitously by Fed Chair Yellen in the last two days - has a different meaning in stock-land...

VIX hammered to a 9-handle, sending stocks soaring...

Oh, and decliners are outpacing advancers...

Headlines: Everything is awesome. pic.twitter.com/XH4Vg3V3D1

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) July 13, 2017

Remember the 2007 Bubble?

Remember how everyone said that it really wasn’t that big of a bubble because stocks weren’t as expensive as they had been during the previous bubble (the Tech Bubble).

We all remember how that turned out: the bubble burst leading to the greatest financial crisis in 80 years.

Well, today’s bubble is WAY larger than that of 2007. And arguing that stocks are cheaper than they were during the Tech Bubble doesn’t hold water anymore either.

The following article by David Haggith was published first on The Great Recession Blog:

One of the kookiest moments last month came when Fed Chairwoman Yellen spoke about seeing no financial collapse in sight during our lifetimes

“Would I say there will never ever be another financial crisis? No. Probably that would be going a little too far, but I do think that we’re much safer, and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes, and I don’t believe it will be.”  (CNBC Play video for quote on next crisis.)