Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Mortgage Rates Blast Off (Graph)




The negative implications of the sharp rise in mortgage interest rates are to many to list. When interest rates rise house get more expensive. This is likely to slow the economic recovery in housing -- a real negative. Another likely outcome is the end of the refinancing boom.

Let's not forget, the Treasury has been in the markets buying Treasury securities and mortgage backed securities. As we have pointed out for many months, the Treasury balance sheet is exploding with no end in sight. Rates continue to rise against this background.

It should be clear that there is little or nothing that the FED and Treasury can do to stem the rise in longer dated securities.

Here is another little noticed fact that we will be writing about soon. Since June 1, the two year treasury has risen 26 basis points, while the ten year treasury has dropped 4 basis points. This means the yield curve is flattening. Go here for the Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates.

My guess is in the next 12-18 months the market will realize that stagflation is the name of the game.

This is the worst thing that can happen to the dollar. The only thing that could stem a run on the dollar is FED tightening.
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Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 500 articles with more than 11,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments.


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