Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • U.S. Treasury issues retribution??? What if there is a new tool being considered by foreign holders
    I don't know much, except what I see; from time to time.
    --- The Pimco Enhanced Short Duration, etf; had the first price down days (Last Friday and today) since late 2022.
    --- UST issues 2, 5, 10 and 30 year durations had large basis points gains today. The percentage (%) moves ranged from +3% to +4.8%.
    --- Many IG bond funds/etf's; after decent YTD price gains recently, have lost about 50% of those gains TODAY.
    I'm trying to imagine a progressing action from foreign holders of UST issues selling off UST's. Their mantra being, 'We don't want your junk issues any longer, as you're becoming a failing state'. Of course, if a message was sent to certain folks in D.C. stating that the U.S. might/should consider that 'tariff' thing.
    This data is believed to be accurate.
    Top Foreign Holders:
    Japan: Holds the largest amount of U.S. debt, with over $1 trillion.
    China: Is the second-largest foreign holder, with approximately $759 billion.
    United Kingdom: Follows China with approximately $723 billion.
    Other Notable Holders:
    Luxembourg: holds $423.9 billion.
    Cayman Islands: holds $418.9 billion.
    Foreign Holdings Composition:
    Foreigners hold approximately one-third of outstanding U.S. Treasury securities.
    The composition of foreign holdings varies by geography, with advanced economies' holdings being predominantly private investors and emerging market economies' holdings dominated by official holdings.
    Data Source:
    The data on foreign holdings of U.S. securities is based on the Treasury International Capital (TIC) U.S. liabilities survey (SHL).
    Types of Treasury Securities:
    The U.S. Treasury offers five types of Treasury marketable securities: Treasury Bills, Treasury Notes, Treasury Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), and Floating Rate Notes (FRNs).
    Remain curious,
    Catch
  • So Much for Flight to Safety
    @gman57.
    So, you are saying inflation caused investors to dump treasuries.
    Because they think Fed will raise rates? Or, because they think treasuries will not keep up?
    I discounted the former because I felt the inflation will not be caused by demand, so I am doubtful the Fed would raise rates more.
    I did not think about the latter. But, I did not see a rush to buy equities (except briefly because of false pause report), so what is the alternative?
  • So Much for Flight to Safety
    "Market participants said the declines in the $29tn Treasury market on Monday reflected several factors, including hedge funds cutting down on leverage — or borrowing used to magnify trades —
    and a broader dash for cash as investors sheltered from swings in the wider market."

    "Investors and analysts pointed in particular to hedge funds that took advantage of small differences in the price of Treasuries and associated futures contracts, known as the 'basis trade'. These funds, which are large players in the fixed-income market, unwound those positions as they cut back on risk, prompting selling in Treasuries."
    https://www.ft.com/content/623971a1-cd93-43c2-ad8d-ba8815339a24
    Financial Times article may be paywalled.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Yes, I was going to buy PDO today because it was at par (no discount/premium) after the hit it took. Normally 4.5% premium and paying almost 12%. I almost pulled the trigger. I decided to give up CEF's about a year ago and that kept me from buying it. Wasn't easy but I fought the temptation and stayed away.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    I didn't buy or sell anything today.
    Multiple posters on another forum purchased Pimco Dynamic Income (PDI) today.
    This CEF has sold at an average premium of 12.85% over the past year.
    According to M*, the fund's premium is currently only 5.97%.
    The dividend yield is apparently >15%.
  • James Bianco, "Who Blew Up" Today?
    https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-bianco-117619152_tin-foil-hat-types-ask-who-profited-off-the-activity-7315044501297721345-zo8l?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAFjCY6wBccxAhzfDGLCwSkfGL97DN413bHU
    "Tin-foil hat types ask who profited off the wild volatility below.
    My experience is it is often nobody. Wild moves like below hurt more than help. This includes brokerage prop-desks and billion-dollar hedge funds.
    I see this kind of volatility and ask, "who blew up.""
    image
  • Matt Levine- MoneyStuff, 4/7/25: "Nondelegation"
    Part 2:
    Here is the complaint. It is not about last week’s broad tariffs: It’s a challenge to the tariffs imposed in February on China (and Canada and Mexico), also under the IEEPA. In those tariffs, the asserted emergency was “the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl.” Simplified argues that the IEEPA can’t be used for tariffs at all. From the complaint:
    In the IEEPA’s almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens.
    IEEPA does authorize asset freezes, trade embargoes, and similar economic sanctions. Presidents have used the IEEPA to target dangerous foreign actors—primarily terrorist organizations and hostile countries such as Iran, Russia, and North Korea. Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy.
    And even if the IEEPA allowed tariffs, this is not a sensible emergency for them:
    [Trump’s] China Executive Orders show no connection between the opioid problem and the tariff he ordered—much less that the tariff is “necessary” to resolve that problem. The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense “necessary” to that stated purpose.
    And:
    In fact, President Trump’s own statements reveal the real reason for the China tariff, which is to reduce American trade deficits while raising federal revenue. While the “emergency” is not challenged here, the “fit” of the tariffs to the declared emergency does not meet the requirements of the IEEPA.
    If the President is permitted to use the IEEPA to bypass the statutory scheme for tariffs, the President will have nearly unlimited authority to commandeer Congress’s power over tariffs. He would be empowered to declare a national emergency based on some long-running national problem, then impose tariffs purportedly in the name of that emergency—thus sidestepping the detailed constraints Congress has placed on the tariff authority it has granted.
    The complaint was filed after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced, but I suppose it was written earlier. That last paragraph turned out to be a good prediction: Trump really did “declare a national emergency based on some long-running national problem, then impose tariffs purportedly in the name of that emergency.” And it is a live question whether courts will let him.
  • Matt Levine- MoneyStuff, 4/7/25: "Nondelegation"
    While I read Matt Levine almost daily, I don't believe that I've ever reproduced his work here on MFO before. However, his commentary today is of extraordinary interest under the present circumstances.
    Nondelegation
    Part 1:
    The stock market continued to crash this morning because of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announced last week. Despite widespread criticism of the tariffs, Trump is unmoved. He gets to decide, and he has decided that the tariffs are good.
    But does he get to decide? In some ways the simplest solution to the tariff problem is the one that I wrote about last Thursday. The US Constitution says that “the Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” The power of taxation is the most fundamentally legislative function, so much so that the Constitution also says that “all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” This was at the very center of constitutional design, and in fact of the founding of America. As a history of the House puts it:
    Congress—and in particular, the House of Representatives—is invested with the “power of the purse,” the ability to tax and spend public money for the national government. Massachusetts’ Elbridge Gerry said at the Federal Constitutional Convention that the House “was more immediately the representatives of the people, and it was a maxim that the people ought to hold the purse-strings.”
    English history heavily influenced the Constitutional framers. The British House of Commons has the exclusive right to create taxes and spend that revenue, which is considered the ultimate check on royal authority. Indeed, the American colonists’ cry of “No taxation without representation!” referred to the injustice of London imposing taxes on them without the benefit of a voice in Parliament.
    Tariffs are uncontroversially taxes — “duties, imposts and excises” are listed in the constitutional text, and they are designed to raise revenue — so only the House of Representatives can originate them. It is simply an error for President Trump to impose tariffs. He can’t, that’s not his job, this is all a misunderstanding, and the tariffs will go away as soon as anyone notices.
    Of course it is not that simple. Congress has in fact delegated tariff powers to the president for over 100 years, and courts have generally said that that’s fine.
    But there are some differences between those precedents and the current situation. For one thing, Trump’s tariffs were imposed under a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which allows the president to regulate imports if he declares a national emergency.[1] The IEEPA had never been used to impose tariffs before Trump used it in February to impose tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico; he also used it on “Liberation Day” last week to impose much broader tariffs. Here is what the IEEPA says:
    Any authority granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may be exercised to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.
    The authorities granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose. Any exercise of such authorities to deal with any new threat shall be based on a new declaration of national emergency which must be with respect to such threat.
    What is the “unusual and extraordinary threat” that requires these tariffs? The declaration of the tariffs says that there is a “national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit that is driven by the absence of reciprocity in our trade relationships and other harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes (VAT) perpetuated by other countries.”
    The idea seems to be that every trade policy of every country in the world, over the past several decades, constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” This is a strange way to use words! How can every instance of trade with every country be unusual? How, after decades of trade deficits, is a trade deficit extraordinary?
    It is also a strange way to use law. The US is in a perpetual state of emergency with respect to every country forever, allowing the president to use emergency powers to bypass the Constitution to impose tariffs.
    The other thing that has changed, as we have discussed a few times, is that US federal courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, have recently become more interested in “nondelegation” challenges to executive action. The idea is that Congress often gives executive agencies the power to make rules, and there is a longstanding, largely conservative legal tradition objecting to this: The Constitution gives Congress “all legislative powers” of the federal government, so only Congress, not executive agencies, should be writing substantive rules.
    So sometimes people challenge regulations, saying that they are unconstitutional because only Congress, not regulatory agencies, can legislate. These challenges rarely work. The current state of the law is that Congress must give the executive “an intelligible principle to guide the delegee’s use of discretion,” and for the last 90 years or so courts have usually found that it has. But there seems to be revived interest in nondelegation challenges: The Supreme Court case I quoted in the last sentence, from 2019, was a 5-3 decision in which four justices expressed interest in “reconsider[ing] the approach we have taken for the past 84 years” and limiting the ability of Congress to delegate its powers to the executive. (Also, disclosure-brag, my wife argued it.) With the current personnel on the Supreme Court, there might be five votes for a more robust nondelegation doctrine.
    Would it apply to tariffs? I don’t know. The modern revival of nondelegation is often about agency rulemaking: People object to unelected regulators making rules, because (say) the US Securities and Exchange Commission is not as democratically accountable as Congress is. The president is elected, and there is some democratic accountability for the impacts of his tariffs; perhaps Congress should be allowed to give him a blank check to invent tariffs.
    But the Constitution really does say that only Congress can impose tariffs. Arguably either the IEEPA does have an “intelligible principle” that limits the president’s ability to impose tariffs — they have to be a necessary response to an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” not just general economic policy — in which case the current blanket tariffs seem suspect, or it doesn’t, in which case it is unconstitutional. So you could imagine two sorts of legal challenges to the current round of IEEPA tariffs:
    1.) The IEEPA doesn’t actually give the president to impose tariffs on every country just because he doesn’t like free trade. IEEPA powers are only for emergencies, and “international trade exists” can’t really be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US.
    2.) If the IEEPA did give the president sweeping powers to impose tariffs, that would be unconstitutional.
    I called this argument “frankly pretty speculative” on Thursday, but obviously someone should try it. There are trillions of dollars at stake, and a lot of the conservative legal establishment is probably not thrilled with tariffs. Surely there will be cases.
    As it happens, also on Thursday, somebody filed one. Bloomberg News reports:
    A powerful legal group backed by conservative funding sued President Donald Trump, setting up an early legal clash over the significant US tariffs his administration announced this week.
    The New Civil Liberties Alliance said Thursday the president illegally imposed an emergency tariff on Chinese goods. NCLA is representing a small retail stationery business named Simplified, which claims it will suffer “severe” harm from his “unconstitutional” tariffs on China.
    The lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida may be the first legal challenge to the sweeping new US tariffs. The levies, which were announced by Trump on Wednesday, have roiled global markets and caused US stocks to plunge.
  • Timely pricing
    Yesterday (Sunday) Fidelity was showing Friday figures (e.g. SPAXX at 3.98%). But today Fidelity is showing the weekend figures. For example, FDRXX shows 4.05% as of April 6th. When you look at the fund page, check the "as of" date right above the quote in the "Daily Info" (upper left corner).
    https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/316067107
    But if you enter a buy order, you'll see the April 4th quote of 4.06%.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    I made three small buys today At about 1.6% of total portfolio. Two at Vanguard & one at Schwab. No waiting in line, so maybe things are slowing down a bit. Sold some funds over the last few months & trying to get back to 30 or 35 % in equities.
    Hopefully the dippers take note, Ha Ha!
  • Board Asleep
    @linter- Yes sir, the 2001 one with Timothy Hutton. If you are interested in a purchase, it's the excellent 2001 one with Timothy Hutton available at Amazon , for about $53.
    If you need to see the subtitles, that can be a bit tricky: the DVD player must provide the old 3- connector output: video on the yellow, audio on the red and white. The now-standard HDMI video output will not provide the subtitles. The picture quality is excellent, and the stories very accurate to the print versions.
  • Tariffs
    Do you REALLY think a large % of his minions would still "believe" he's a financial whiz if the US went belly up?
    His minions will believe this is all somehow Biden's fault, because that's the excuse the propaganda (aka Fox News) will direct them towards. Roughly 35% - 40% of the country will vote for him again no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.
    Maybe if you take their Social Security away, the base erodes a bit more.
    There is no common sense involved, no humility and the facts are alternative. It's the foundation for this entire "movement".
    It's a cult of personality. And it's how we got here.
  • Circuit Breakers - For Current/Future Reference
    And for anybody who wants to better understand the fallacy of the materially incorrect tariff numbers in BOTH columns of the buffoon's tariff's plaque (that I've been posting about on various threads), try to locate CNBC's interview (at about 1:50 EDT today) with AEI's Derek Scissors. I will post it here if/when I locate it.
  • Stagflation - "This Economic Paradox Nearly Took Down Three Presidents.."
    I researched the results of President Nixon's meddling with the Federal Reserve
    in light of President Trump's recent comments urging Jerome Powell to:
    "CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!”
    Some here may be interested in the findings.
    Richard Nixon demanded and Arthur Burns supplied an expansionary mon-
    etary policy and a growing economy in the run-up to the 1972 election. (page 178)
    Thus, a monetary stimulus helped to boost the economy in time for the 1972
    election, helping to deliver Nixon’s landslide victory. However, the excessive ag-
    gregate demand stimulation prior to the election created serious problems for the
    economy that took nearly a decade to resolve. (page 179)
    Regardless of the ultimate source of Arthur Burns’s motivation, his actions as
    Federal Reserve chair helped to trigger an extremely costly inflationary boom– bust
    cycle. By Election Day in 1972, the Fed had already started its monetary tightening.
    The federal funds rate had risen from 4.49 percent in July 1972 to 5.06 percent by
    Election Day. As Nixon had told Burns in February 1972, “I really don’t care what
    you do in [or after] April.” One year after the election, in November 1973, the
    Federal Reserve had hit the monetary policy brakes in earnest. In the year since the
    November 1972 election, the discount rate had been increased from 4.5 percent in
    July 1972 to 7.5 percent. The federal funds rate, which had been 4.49 percent in
    July 1972, jumped to 9.71 percent. But the civilian unemployment rate, as usual a
    lagging indicator, continued to plummet, falling to 4.8 percent in November 1973.
    The Nixon–Burns boom– bust cycle was underway. (page 187)
    The eventual elimination of wage and price controls in 1973 and the exces-
    sively aggressive monetary policy of 1971–72 produced an inflationary boom. The
    inflation rate measured by the change in the Consumer Price Index for 1973 was
    9.6 percent (as shown in Table 3). In response to the post-election Federal Reserve
    tightening, the economy swung into a recession in November 1973, one year after
    the election. The recession lasted until March 1975, but even this recession was
    insufficient to stop inflationary pressures. The inflation rate for 1975 was
    6.7 percent— higher than the rate that precipitated the earlier wage and price
    controls. It was not until Paul Volcker became chairman of the Federal Reserve in
    1979 and the 1980 – 82 recessions occurred that inflation was finally brought under
    control. During those recessions, the federal funds rate hit a record 15.61 percent
    (weekly average) and the unemployment rate rose to over 10 percent for ten
    months. Inflation was finally defeated, but at huge economic cost. (page 187)
    https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.20.4.177
  • Circuit Breakers - For Current/Future Reference
    I posted this elsewhere, but thought we might want to be able to locate this data w/o searching.
    So, for today and likely future reference...
    https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/06/sp-500-circuit-breaker-on-tariff-worries-what-that-means.html
    Excerpt:
    There are three circuit breaker levels:
    Level 1: The S&P 500 falls 7% intraday. If this occurs before 3:25 p.m. ET, trading is halted for 15 minutes. If it happens after that time, trading continues unless a level 3 breaker is tripped up.
    Level 2: The S&P 500 drops 13% intraday. If this occurs before 3:25 p.m. ET, trading stops for 15 minutes. If it happens after that time, trading continues unless a level 3 breaker is triggered.
    Level 3: The S&P 500 plunges 20% intraday. At this point, the Exchange suspends trading for the remainder of the day.
    The benchmark closed Friday’s session at 5,074.08. Here are the thresholds the S&P 500 needs to reach during Monday’s session the different circuit breakers to be triggered:
    Level 1: 4,718.89
    Level 2: 4,414.45
    Level 3: 4,059.26
  • Tariffs
    And he's now threatening China with 50% additional tariffs if they don't drop the 34%.
    Well, at least he has a lot of personal experience with bankruptcies.
    He runs the country the way he runs his business. Only problem is, bankruptcy doesn't go well for countries...
  • Tariffs
    And he's now threatening China with 50% additional tariffs if they don't drop the 34%.
    Well, at least he has a lot of personal experience with bankruptcies.
  • Tariffs
    I just saw a good interview on MSNBC -- The global investor said " the world is moving on and looking at how to do it without the US" This is going to cause long term problems for the US. FAFO at its finest.
    As the Orange one said about Canadian wood, oil, electricity, etc... "We don't need them..."
    This will not end well for us.
  • Stagflation - "This Economic Paradox Nearly Took Down Three Presidents.."
    @Charles, lots of quick changes in bonds. Junk bonds that worked in last two years now are falling behind as the market is falling, while the safer and quality IG bonds are back this week. Quite a reversal. Yes, I like boring T bills, money market, and stable value as cash and cash equivalents. Now is not the time to catch a falling knife.
    Right now the FED is in a tight spot when the inflation remains elevated and getting worse. Watch for the labor market where recession starts.
    Is it economically feasible to reshoring manufacturing base to the States? Interesting but naive thinking in my honest opinion.
    @JD_co, the tariffs is more revealing that meets the eyes. Excerpt from WSJ article.
    But the tariff scheme he announced isn’t reciprocal and isn’t based on measuring foreign trade barriers. Instead, it simply measures bilateral trade deficits and comes up with tariff numbers from there. 
    Those are two very different things, and could be one reason why global financial markets are reacting so badly.
    The upshot is that, in the majority of cases, the Trump administration is now charging other countries more than what they charge the U.S.
    Take the case of Vietnam. The U.S. will now charge Vietnam a 46% tariff for its exports to the U.S. But Vietnam’s simple average tariff is 9.4%, and its weighted average tariff—which is adjusted to account for the share of products coming in under different tariff rates—is just 5.1%, according to data from the World Trade Organization.
    For Apple News subscribers, here is the link.
    https://apple.news/AP0d-np1rQOSoanLTvSkaVQ