Now Is an Excellent Time for the Treasury to Issue Long-Term Bonds

By Tom Burnett CFA With U.S. Treasury interest rates at record low levels, the Treasury should be planning to issue a large offering of long-term bonds whose low coupon would lock in the low interest payments over a 20- or 30-year period, depending on the bonds issued. The 30-year yield is trading in…

By Tom Burnett CFA On March 3, 2020, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee decided unanimously to lower the Fed Funds range to 1-1.25%, down 50 basis points from the previous level. The Fed’s press release indicated that it is ‘closely monitoring’ the economic impact of the coronavirus…

By Tom Burnett CFA On March 2, 2020, the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) in Paris issued a special “Interim Economic Outlook” notice warning that the Coronavirus outbreak is putting the global economy at risk. In this Notice, the OECD revised its growth forecasts down…

By Tom Burnett CFA The latest (February 21, 2020) Earnings Insight report from FACTSET provides earnings estimates for the S/P 500 Index. We regularly check these surveys to monitor analyst forecasts and changes in forecasts for the Index earnings expectations. The average view for 2020 earnings on the…

By Tom Burnett CFA As the U.S. stock markets opened on Monday, February 24, 2020, global interest rates continued to decline sharply. Rates on the ten-year government bonds are now negative is six major countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, and Sweden). Equity markets are selling…