Posts Tagged ‘bond bear market’

Stocks Are Down Ten Percent, Now What?

October 31st, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

This past week the S&P 500 traded ten percent below its all-time high set just a few weeks earlier on September 21^st. This letter also marks the one year anniversary of my letter entitled Top of Tops. Why wait until year-end to write the year in review when an anniversary will do.

Last November we were well into the Bond Bear Market that began in 2012, yet few talked about it or even noticed. We have been keeping score using the US Treasury ten year note which hit 2.01% on September 8^th, 2017, 2.47% a few weeks later on October 27^th and traded October 9, 2018 at 3.26%. Indeed bond yields are running higher, sending longer-term bond prices ever lower.

The bellwether thirty year US Treasury bond posted a low of 2.63% September 8^th, 2017 and recently traded at 3.44% on October 9, 2018. A year later we have seen significantly more analysts, pundits and investors join the bond market bear camp but as I said last month, interest rates are rising so slowly (so far) as to only minimally affect overall fixed income investment returns. (more…)

Slow Moving Bear

October 9th, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Having a plan and executing it can be worthwhile in a market in which yields on almost all bonds are rising and their prices are falling. Three quarters into 2018 and yields are up and prices are down on almost all kinds of bonds and across all maturities.

Take a look at this month’s featured municipal bond issue, Eagle Pass, TX, below, and compare it to January’s yields. Yields are higher across all maturities, from short-term to long-term, of at least one half of one percent. Higher yields mean lower bond prices but yet that message is not is not making a huge dent in performance. The reason is speed. Yes, interest rates are up but the speed of change has not had an appreciable negative effect on bond market performance.

Looking at municipal bond indexes we see this. The S&P Municipal Bond Index is essentially unchanged from January 1^st. Same for the Bloomberg Barclays Municipal Intermediate to Short Total Return Index or their US Municipal Bond Index for that matter (all per Bloomberg). Check your favorite yardstick and compare. The reason this is so is because the interest earned so far has been keeping up with principal (price) loss. (more…)

Depths of Summer

August 6th, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Heady days and bond markets rarely go together. Nor do the terms ‘bond market’ and ‘news’. Add summer and vacations into the mix and the bond market becomes French. Absent.

I may exaggerate but not much. Thankfully we are not looking to keep up (or primarily down) with any bond index, we are not burdened by scale or the inability to find worthwhile bonds. Every day I get to practice and build my skills and every day things come together. Except in the summer, things come a bit more slowly.

Last month I discussed how the markets are poised for a fall. One more month without the Bond Crash of 2018, but the first of August brought ten year US Treasury note yields back to 3% for the first time in several months. Most of 2018 has so far been a correction of the dramatically higher yields (and double-digit price losses of longer bonds). Whether we begin the next phase of higher rates and lower prices immediately or whether it takes a few more months, is not important. What is important is you are prepared and you are prepared because you own the proper asset, chosen by The Select Approach^TM. (more…)

The End of Slow

July 6th, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Halfway through the year and still no Bond Crash of 2018. Despite the double-digit losses in the longer US Treasury market discussed last month, the sell-off is orderly. With a recent temporary pause (treasury bond prices have bounced the past six weeks), the set up remains quite ripe for the Bond Crash of 2018.

Stocks are doing their part as well. Take a look at the Dow over the first six months of the year. A sharp rise into January’s record highs only to swoon into February’s dive. Given ample opportunity for investors to buy this year’s dip, the Dow has instead delivered how a bear market behaves. Gapping down, filling gaps, falling further and partial retracements of late…these are bearish descriptions of the Dow over the past weeks.

We are left with a bond market bear that began in 2012 and the beginning of one for stocks. This, despite record profits, surging growth, tax cuts and off the chart optimism in just about every metric out there. The market doesn’t care; the market is a market.

The importance of these paragraphs are not because they portend change, a change we can all ride out together. No. These paragraphs and my years of harping on this subject is because the changes will be generational, unfathomable changes. (more…)

Remember Credit Quality?

April 2nd, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Since November’s letter, Top of Tops, I’ve discussed the unfolding progress of the new bear markets in both stocks and bonds. While recognizing the risks of an impending bond market crash, we instead were treated to the beginning of a stock market crash.

On March 23^rd the Dow closed at 23,533, essentially even with the November 1^st close. But what a wild five months it has been for stocks. Almost straight up to the all-time high of 26,617 January 26th, to a 12% sell off in a mere ten days to a new closing low as of this writing.

I don’t just see possible horrific losses for stocks unfolding, I see probable horrific losses for stocks unfolding. This is why I have referenced the 1987 stock market crash (down 22% in one day, down 40% over eight weeks). The seemingly impossible has happened before. Who knows, this time it may be worse.

Conventional wisdom may direct investor’s funds towards bonds if such a stock market panic unfolds. That would be a mistake in my opinion. While stocks attempted to bounce since their 12% sell-off and have failed, bonds did rally. But this rally happened in the midst of a larger bond market sell-off. With an overall downtrend for both stocks and bonds, if both do get aligned and move strongly lower together the resultant fear could heighten concerns of a crash in financial asset values. (more…)

Shot Across The Bow

March 1st, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

While bonds continued their slow, steady march to higher yields (and lower prices), the stock market corrected. One thousand Dow points lost in just over an hour. Stock indexes swooned, even falling below the levels I marked in my November Letter as the Top of Tops.

I am sure you didn’t sell in November, just as I am sure you didn’t sell 3,000 points higher at 26,500 in January. You are not conditioned to sell; you are conditioned to buy the dips. We have enjoyed thirty-plus years of bull market reinforcement, not to mention every bit of economic, scholarly and sage advice written to further reinforce stocks for the long run.

Last month’s letter predicts the bond crash of 2018. Despite the stock market’s gyrations of late, the bond market neither soared or crashed. The bond market continues to deteriorate, yet at a seemingly glacial pace over the past several months. Ten year US Treasury notes were 2.01% on September 2^nd and touched 2.95% in February (Bloomberg) while activity in municipal bond markets remain somewhat muted. Overall, new higher yields for US Treasury notes and bonds, furthering the bond bear market but no crash, yet. (more…)

The Bond Crash of 2018

February 1st, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Another month of higher interest rates continues the upward trend since my call back in June that interest rates are moving higher. A slow slog, yes, but bond prices are slowly sinking. The market continues to chip away at the general consensus of “lower rates longer”.

This is the story of how a gargantuan bond market turns.

Over the course of the thirty-plus year bond bull market no discussion of bonds could be had without mention of inflation. As inflation heated up throughout the 1970s and peaked in 1980, bond prices collapsed…until they collapsed their last. Inflation figures began to decline as well. As double-digit inflation figures became a thing of the past, the bond bull market began to gallop.

Bonds and inflation are believed to be inexorably linked. When asked whether there is risk of even higher interest rates today, most investment professionals will answer no adding that inflation is benign. Ask them why rates are up dramatically in the past few months and again, most would probably say that there has been a slight uptick in inflation.

As inflation goes, so goes interest rates. Or is it, as interest rates go, so goes inflation. One way or another, the general assumption is that interest rates and inflation are correlated. (more…)

Not The Same As The Old Year

January 11th, 2018 by Kurt L. Smith

Happy 2018 to you and yours! I hope 2017 was a good year for you and may 2018 be wonderful.

One always tries to keep the wind at your back and this appears to be the consensus with investors. Optimism is extremely high and the business press (and stock market performance) reflects this sentiment.

This is the definition of trend. To be the trend it must show general tendency AND it needs to continue long enough to get noticed. The trend is your friend because you are an investor, not a trader. The trend can provide you sound grounding to make decisions as well as a framework for what may come.

These past several months we have discussed the next move in the continuing trend for bonds as well as a change in the trend for stocks. Bonds hit their high in price (low in yield) on September 8^th. Since then, rates have slowly risen, while I believed they would move up faster. The ten year US Treasury was 2.01% in September, a 2.47% high in November and a new 2.50% high in December. Two year treasuries were 1.25% in September, 1.78% higher in November and a new 1.92% high in December and 1.97% this past week.

The reason I continue to write about bond yields is because it is important to know the trend. I marked the end of the bond bull market back in 2012. Buyers of long-term bonds back in 2012 invested in low yields, their current bond value is less to boot as rates have risen and bond prices have fallen. (more…)

They Are All Markets

December 15th, 2017 by Kurt L. Smith

Well, so much for Top of Tops. Last month’s market call that both bonds and stocks were headed lower, proved premature. The September-October bond market decline failed to gather downward momentum while stocks added another leg upward.

While 1,000 Dow points isn’t what it used to be (lately about 4%, whereas 10% or more in years of yore), it is still 1,000 points. For me, a 1,000 points of wrong, but that’s the way markets can behave.

Take Bitcoin, everyone’s favorite (new) subject. In what appeared to be a frothy, over-extended market, Bitcoin merely added another fifty percent. And that was just last week!

Does one have to do with the other? Can the frothiness of Bitcoin and the added leg up in stocks or the pause in the bond bear market be related? Yes, they are all related: they are all markets. (more…)

Slow Moving Bond Bear To Quicken

October 16th, 2017 by Kurt L. Smith

The trend is indeed your friend and the only friend one has needed these past few years has been the one in stocks. Despite the fact that municipal bonds were the best performing asset class in 2014 (yeah, that long ago), stocks are where the action is. Enjoy it, because trends change.

When it comes to bonds, only two words are needed: low rates. Forget trend change; forget even a price or yield change. When it comes to bonds, low rates is all you need to know. Spoken by stock market pundits, why would anyone be concerned about bonds? Stocks are where the action is.

Rates are indeed low, but they have been lower. The reason we care is because the trend is your friend and when it comes to bonds, the trend has changed. You know it because I keep telling you. Sure it’s a lonely proposition, but the market continues, albeit v-e-r-y slowly, that I am indeed correct.

In June, I believed a 2.13% low on the ten year treasury completed the bond market’s correction of the 1.32% to 2.64% initial move up. Yep, I tried to hurry the market. In September the market hit 2.02%. But last week we were back to 2.40%. I like my proposition!

At rates of 2-this or 2-that, every stock investor will continue to claim the low rate mantra. But after a 1,000 or 5,000 point decline in the Dow, the perspectives will change. The story will change. (more…)

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