interest rates

While JPMorgan's Loan to deposit ratio is particularly low, the bank is by no means unique. LTD in the US is at the lows not seen in decades. On an absolute basis the gap between deposits and loans is now at some $2.4 trillion and growing.…

Most investors are expecting 2014 to be a good year economically and for this to translate into a good year for investing. But we have never been deep into a business cycle with rates at zero or with no chance of a Fed hike on the horizon.…

By Marc Chandler The ECB meets tomorrow. There is much consternation among many observers over the ECB's reluctance to recognize what they see as a potent deflationary threat. With the US economy gaining momentum and GDP per capita set to…

When the Eurozone moved toward the backloaded austerity paradigm, last Spring, I started to change my tune on Europe. In June, I wrote that we should watch second derivatives in the Eurozone, because the change in change numbers are a…

On Friday, I read a post on the New York City housing market that got me to thinking about how we view interest rates and their effect on credit markets. Traditionally, we view higher interest rates as a net tightening and slowing of the…

As I was preparing to write my annual "Outlook and Forecast" for 2014, I read many different views from major Wall Street firms to get a general feel of the consensus. However, during the course of my research I read one piece of work in…

The treasury yield curve remains quite steep by historical standards. Typically such steepness is driven by expectations of higher inflation in the future. But as discussed earlier, that is not the case in the US. Instead it is the…

Godley shows that under all scenarios, debt/gdp stabilises at some combination of interest rate, growth rate and primary deficit/surplus - provided there is full employment. So debt/gdp does not "spiral out of control" if government…

Since the Fed announced the reduction in securities purchases ("small taper"), the treasury curve has undergone some strange adjustments. Why would the 5-year note sell off the most while the long bond rallied?

Solving Germany's investment problem requires both low interest rates and increased government investment. The ECB is at least attempting to address the first of these. But when is the German government going to accept its responsibility…