Tuesday, August 24, 2010

US Treasury bond bubble?



http://www.zerohedge.com/article/marc-faber-and-peter-schiff-take-bond-bulls-rosenberg-faber-gentlemens-bet

As for the Faber-Schiff view, no surprise: Peter encapsulates it best: "the bond market is the mother of all bubbles right now, and when it bursts the losses will dwarf the combined losses of the stock market bubble and the real estate bubble. There is no way for the government to pay this money back."

Schiff notes: "I am afraid is that when people realize we can't pay this money back, we aren't going to be able to roll over all this short-term debt. And so it's not just paying the interest, we are going to have to retire the principal." Peter Schiff is correct that inflating our way out of this debt bubble is a lose-lose proposition. Schiff also notes the stupidity of crowds, by highlighting that 10 years ago everyone was chasing risk, by piling into stock market funds, followed by everyone knows what. The outcome for bond investors is clear: "this decade is going to be the worst decade for bonds in US history. Bond holders are going to get wiped out. Either the government is going to default, or it is going to inflate, but either way the people holding the bonds, are holding the bag."

Faber then joins in: "there isn't much upside in treasuries unless it is for the short term. When I look ten years ahead I don't want to have my money in USTs." His main concern is that due to high budget deficits, there is a good chance that these will go even higher, and as a result the interest payments on government debt will become unbearable. As for the foreign bid, Faber also points out their prior folly: "In 1999/2000 foreigners also wanted to buy the NASDAQ and what happened afterwards is a major collapse. I would not look at foreign buying as a very intelligent leading indicator." In other words Faber just called the Chinese, UK and Japanese permabid in UST moronic. Faber is also not a big fan of a 30 year bond market (since 1981). "I would rather buy an asset class that has been in a bear market." Faber would buy farm land, agricultural commodities, and that gold belongs in a portfolio.

Probably the best argument of the debate is Schiff's observation that the government is not expanding the economy with the newly printed money: no money is being invested in productive capacity, it is not expanding the tax base, and as a result the economy is getting weaker.

Faber, is laconic, in saying that the UST market bottomed out in 1981 when yields went over 15% on the 10 Y, and topped in December 2008, at 2.1%, which was "the peak of the bubble."

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