JGBs
Brief Note on Fiscal Debt and Long-Term Interest Rates
October 6, 2014
Hindsight is insightful as well as twenty-twenty. While thinning out my files over the weekend, I came across an article from the April 28, 2010 issue of the Financial Times entitled Clock is ticking on Japan’s low debt yields. The two self-explanatory lead sentences provide the gist of the entire text: It is one of […] More
How Contagious Ought Japan’s Crisis Be?
March 17, 2011
One would think from watching global stock exchanges over the past week that everyone’s fate hinges on Japan’s. After all, Japan is the third largest nation-state economy in the world, having only recently been displaced from the second slot by China. For the past two decades, however, Japan has lacked the dynamism that built it […] More
Little Change in the Dollar Ahead of U.S. Jobs Report
September 3, 2010
The dollar edged up 0.2% against the yen and the Swiss franc and by 0.1% versus the Australian and Canadian dollars. The dollar fell 0.3% against the kiwi and by 0.1% against the euro. The greenback is unchanged against the pound and yuan. Market consensus calls for U.S. non-farm payrolls to drop around 100K, but […] More
Japanese and U.S. Government Bond Yields
August 17, 2010
Japan provides a good example of what happens to long-term interest rates when very low inflation or outright deflation occur. The ten-year JGB yield has averaged 1.45% since the end of 1997. Such dropped below unity recently and is presently at 0.95%. The yield first plumbed below 1.0% in 1998 during the Asian debt crisis, […] More
Bond Yields in the Noughties Compared to the Nineties
December 21, 2009
As the current decade winds down, the ten-year minus two-year yield curve has lengthened to a record width and is up 136 basis points since the end of 2008. Nonetheless, the ten-year yield of 3.67% remains 78 basis points below its decade average of 4.45%. Likewise, that average for the present decade of the noughties […] More
