Average US Treasury yields climbed all across the curve in May 2025

Bills 4.28

Notes 4.096

Bonds 4.91

Aggregate 4.31 

Average Bond yields climbed for a second consecutive month.

The Daily Federal Funds Rate averaged 4.33.

 

Trump calls Powell a fool for not lowering rates, yields rise in response lol

 

Trump calls Fed Chair Jerome Powell a ‘fool’ after central bank keeps rates steady again

 

 

 

This week's US Treasury auctions indicated the opposite of rising interest rates

As usual the alarmists and doomsayers are . . . alarmists and doomsayers.

Demand for US debt is steady and strong this week:

3MO at 4.225% average vs. 4.225% previously

6MO at 4.05 vs. 4.06 previously

2Y at 3.795 vs. 3.984 previously

5Y at 3.995 vs. 4.1 previously

7Y at 4.123 vs. 4.233 previously.

Yields across the curve last night averaged 4.240, down from 4.261 a week ago, below the Daily Fed Funds Rate at 4.33.

 

 

 

Week over week US Treasury yields in the aggregate popped 5.8% on net to an average 4.335% after declining for months from 4.5 to 4.0 and everybody's freaking out like this hasn't happened, what, six times now in the current era

Most of the pissing and moaning is from investors who pulled the bond trigger too soon, plowed into fixed income, and got burned badly because interest rates reasserted themselves.

The press this weekend is instead full of apocalyptic language about the Treasury market and the implications for America on a grand scale. It's complete rot and I'm ignoring it. It's all designed to pressure the Fed to lower their rate again.

The last time the Fed embarked on rate cuts is instructive. It was late September 2024. The average of the aggregate of the curve had fallen to just north of 4. Inflation rates seemed to be trending down. So the Fed cut, and voila! Treasury rates hilariously shot upward!

The burn was real.  

$TLT investors, who were down 4.76% in 2021, 31.41% in 2022, up 2.96% in 2023, went down again, 7.84% in 2024 as a result. Ouch.

They are back, itching again for a policy reversal like they have a flea infestation, so bad they are bleeding.

As things stand year to date, long term investment grade investors in VWESX, for example, are down 1.43%. It wasn't supposed to be this way, not again.

So everyone hates the bond vigilantes with the heat of 1,000 suns, and urges more imprudence.

Meanwhile in "cash" you go on making 4.3% or so, and in gold you have made a killing, while stocks reel under Trump's stupid tariff shotgun blasts which are wounding everyone in the field, including himself.

If the Fed had done a proper job against inflation by jacking up the Fed Funds Rate to meaningfully combat the core pce inflation rate of its average 5.35% in 2022 instead of going only where it did, which was 1.69% on an average basis, maybe we wouldn't still have this lingering inflation for the bond vigilantes to demand payment against. Core pce inflation hasn't moved materially off 2.8% in a year now, still much too high.

The bond market is "she who must be obeyed". She doesn't tell you everything you need to know, but she does tell you the most important thing.

But what the hell do I know. I'm just some punk keyboard warrior blogging in his underwear in the basement to the money men. So yippee-ki-yay, you earned it. Especially you Donald Trump, you complete ignoramus.

 

Last week US Treasury yields for Bills averaged below the Daily Federal Funds Rate of 4.33 after 12 weeks averaging 4.3+change

 

In the aggregate US Treasury yields averaged 4.408 on Friday, Feb 7, still ahead of the Daily Federal Funds Rate of 4.33 set by the Fed in December

Relative to each other by duration, bond yields on average normalized at the beginning of December, and notes on average in mid-December. 

Last week the spreads narrowed as bills on average rose a little bit in the aggregate and bond yields fell.

The 20-year bond was the yield leader at 4.75 while the 1-year bill was the yield laggard of all the issues at 4.25. 

The fixed rate 30-year mortgage averaged 6.89 last Thursday.

 

 

The revenge of the bond vigilantes

 The Fed started cutting the Federal Funds Rate last September (DFF 5.33 then, 4.33 now), and average yields for notes and bonds started climbing and haven't stopped lol.

 

 

S&P 500 Equal Weight Index down 7.25% in December to date, US Treasury yields up a net 2.13% in the aggregate since the end of November

Both stocks and fixed income down at the same time is a real bummer, you know, like in 2022.

UST yields in the aggregate tonight are at 4.45 vs 4.356 at the end of November.

UST yields have risen 375 basis points net in the aggregate in the three months since the Fed started cutting the Fed Funds Rate on September 18. That's +6.93%, which is hilarious.

 

US Treasury yields are looking more normal!

 UST averages tonight: Bills 4.365 Notes 4.410 Bonds 4.695.

Low duration issues yield the least, long duration issues the most, and the middle looks like the middle should look, middling.

That's how it should be.

Low duration issues have been dominating the curve, yielding the most. Why, just at the beginning of the month the 1MO still yielded 4.75, more than any other security. Tonight the 1MO yields 4.44 and the 20Y yields 4.74, the leader. The yield laggards are the 6MO and 1Y at 4.30.  That's what you want to see happen.

The Fed today dropped the Federal Funds Rate 0.25 points to 4.25. I expect the short end to keep moving lower as a result, and the middle to rise more in tandem with the long bonds as inflation continues to bite.

But we shall see.

Well, that's the end of the inflation "fight"

 Fed slashes interest rates by a half point, an aggressive start to its first easing campaign in four years

 

Core pce inflation is out and shows itself running ahead of the 10-year US Treasury yield for four consecutive years 2020-2023, which is unprecedented

Jerome Powell is the biggest phony inflation fighter the country has ever seen.

He was appointed by Trump! So much winning!

Core pce inflation previously exceeded the ten year yield in 1974-75 and in 2012 (barely).

The Fed's primary inflation-fighting tool has been the Federal Funds Rate, but it let inflation run wildly out of control before even lifting a finger to stop it in March 2022 when the Fed finally acted and started raising the rate.

It is a shameful episode which has benefited businesses which hiked prices higher than inflation to goose profits, and the federal government which desperately needed to devalue its mounting debts, all at the expense of the average American.

The lack of outrage over this is a study in the depth of American servitude. Slavery didn't end in 1865 for African Americans. It became the common lot of us all.

 

 

For the tax write-off you idiots

 Why would Elon Musk want to deliberately destroy X?

 Arwa Mahdawi

 

Musk can extract the $44 billion price tag for tax loss purposes and relaunch the thing as the everything platform he keeps talking about. 

This reminds me of the incredulity of Wall Street over Powell's relentless increases to the Federal Funds Rate. He telegraphed it repeatedly months in advance and then raised rates incrementally and said he would keep doing so, but they would not believe, and still do not.

 

It's been a terrible year so far for investors in US Treasury securities because of the rising rate environment, but great for stocks

UST yields rose a net 1.31% in the aggregate week over week on 7/28.

DFF rises to 5.33% after the latest FOMC rate hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Year to date Treasury, Total Bond, Cash, and Total Stock performance using popular Vanguard funds:

VFISX +0.75% VFITX 0.90% VUSTX 1.58% VBTLX 2.05% VMFXX 2.75% lol VTSAX 19.99%!

Stocks have been the place to be, and cash has beaten even the total bond market.

Meanwhile stocks are obscenely overvalued at 169 using the latest report of GDP out Thursday:

 

Core PCE inflation in the United States remains elevated at 4.6% yoy in May 2023, services at 5.3%

 The Federal Funds Rate at 5.07% is ineffective. It should be double that.

The Fed left the Funds Rate unchanged yesterday, and no members of the Federal Reserve Board currently anticipate a rate lower than at present through the end of the year

 They anticipate higher, but not by much, which means more rate hikes this year.

The yield curve aggregate yesterday closed just 4 basis points lower than the current cycle high of 4.674% achieved on March 8th, at 4.671%. That's the sum of the basis points for all US Treasury securities marketed yesterday divided by 13 (ranging from 1-month securities to 30-year).

To say the Fed's response to inflation has been timid would be an understatement.

In the 1980s the Fed's response to core inflation such as we experience today at 5.3% year over year was a Fed Funds Rate in excess of 10%. We're at 5.08%. The yield curve is not steppin' and fetchin' when the big dog won't bark.

This is not a serious country, and is perversely more than willing to inflict the worst tax on all, namely inflation, mostly because the whole damn economy is predicated on 2% inflation, which halves your nestegg in 35 years.

At 5% it does that in just fourteen.

It's criminal.

Gold remains far more overvalued than US stocks, which is saying a lot

Gold is at least 167% overvalued relative to inflation since 1913. $600ish gold makes sense. $1600 gold does not, let alone $2067, the 2020 high.

Meanwhile stocks are off-the-charts overvalued, about 93% relative to the post-Great Depression median valuation of 81 through 2019, as of the latest GDP figures from late May.

Speculation in both gold and stocks, not to mention a host of other things, has been driven by Federal Reserve interest rate suppression since 2001.

How long elevated gold and stock prices can persist in the new higher interest rate environment is anyone's guess.

The Fed Funds rate still averaged a low 1.69% in 2022, so it's still early innings.

.

May 25, 2023

Latest inflation reads show entrenchment, Fed will have to go higher and stay higher for longer but Congress must cut spending and raise revenues

 The Fed can do only so much, but a Fed Funds Rate of 4.83 is hardly adequate for current conditions.

The fiscal side in this, however, has been completely ignored.

Outlays for 2020-2022 alone have topped $19 trillion vs. receipts south of $12 trillion.

Year over year in December, broad inflation is down for six consecutive months, core inflation is down three consecutive months

 

But there's still a long way to go to get to 2-ish percent in either category.

The Fed Funds Rate will be kept higher for longer.

The investment cheerleaders in the US are arrayed against the Fed's rising interest rate regime and lie when they say interest rates are coming down

The yield curve recovered 98 basis points in the last week to close at 5488 on Nov 18.

Despite all the alarming volatility in US Treasuries, the curve is little changed from Oct 28 at 5487 or Oct 19 at 5486, one month ago.

The upward trend remains intact. Raising the Fed Funds rate to 3.83% has produced an overall yield curve at 4.22%.

There's plenty more to be done.

The lying rhetoric is designed to persuade the Fed to halt ("You've done enough!"), enlisting as many dupes along the way as it can to join the chorus, since easy money is the industry's goose that laid the golden egg.

But easy money is why this country is $31 trillion in debt, and why inflation is raging at an average of 8.3% in the first half of 2022.

Since March foreigners have held $300 billion less of the stuff on net through September, which is not a good sign.

But consider that there's about $2.9 trillion in US Treasury notes issued in 2020 alone paying just 0.6% on average and maybe you can understand why.

Meanwhile investors holding bonds are down 30.95% year to date (TLT) at the same time the S&P 500 is down 17.33%. A total bond index like VTSAX is down less, 16.92% year to date, which is cold comfort.

But that's not the Fed's biggest problem.

The Fed's biggest problem remains the so-called "dual mandate", to maintain stable prices AND full employment at the same time.

Our disgusting Congress foisted the latter on the Fed in 1978, which was nothing but a damned if you do, damned if you don't abdication of its own political responsibility dumped onto the appointee of the executive.

But the disgusting Congress represents the disgusting people, who want tax cuts AND infrastructure spending at the same time.

The dual mandate didn't stop Paul Volcker from doing what needed to be done to subdue inflation from 1979, but those were different times when the political tables were the reverse. Volcker was a Democrat appointee saddling a new Republican president with an unemployment rate of 9.7% by jacking up the cost of money. 

Jay Powell is a Republican appointee who will have to do the same to a Democrat president to end the current madness.

The pressure on him to relent comes from every quarter. 

We'll see if the new Republican House has the cojones to back him, which it should if it gives a fig about the future of the country.

But Jay Powell will have to prove that he has the cojones first, because the Congress is full of girly men.

He has hardly begun to fight.

The Fed is all talk and no action fighting inflation

 The effective federal funds rate stands at 2.33% and $8.85 trillion remains on the balance sheet while Powell makes speeches.

Borrowing is still very cheap for the big boys and the Fed's finger on the scale makes it impossible to know the true value of its mortgage backed securities and US Treasuries.

Meanwhile inflation rages at 8.5% in July.

The market "rout" is merely another yawn as Americans get punished at the grocery store and the gas station.

Current GDP of $24.883 trillion, reported 8/25, implies a fairly valued market level of around 1,600 not 4,057. The S&P 500 remains 153% above that.

They remain rich, and you remain . . . the reason why.