la mappazza di carta inizia un pò a sentirsi
Treasury 5-Year Note Little Changed After $28 Billion Auction
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601009&sid=av.iZ52_KKo4&refer=bond#
By Daniel Kruger
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury five-year notes were little changed after the government sold $28 billion of the securities, bringing the amount of two- and five-year notes it auctioned this week to a record $66 billion.
The bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing the number of bids to the amount of securities sold, fell to 2.06, from 2.44 at the last five-year sale. The notes yielded 1.539 percent, the least ever, with yields on all government debt near all-time lows. U.S. debt pared losses amid reports showing the housing market worsened and the economy shrank.
“There are a lot of reasons to like the market, even if the valuations don’t seem compelling,” said
Carl Lantz, an interest-rate strategist in New York at Credit Suisse Securities USA LLC, one of 17 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve.
The five-year note yielded 1.41 percent at 2:52 p.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. The price of the 2 percent security due in November 2013 fell 1/32, or 31 cents per $1,000 face amount, to 102 25/32. The benchmark 10-year note yielded 2.15 percent.
At the last auction of five-year debt on Nov. 25, the Treasury sold $26 billion of notes at a yield of 2.11 percent.
The new five-year security matures in December 2013 and has a 1.50 percent coupon. Indirect bidders, a class of buyer that includes foreign central banks, bought a 24.5 percent of the notes at today’s auction, compared with 37.2 percent at the November sale.
In sign of continuing demand for the safest securities, a $22 billion auction of four-week Treasury bills drew a yield of zero percent for the third straight week.
Two-Year Auction
The government’s record $38 billion sale of two-year notes yesterday drew a yield of 0.922 percent, about 10 basis points, or 0.10 percentage point, higher than the previously sold security. While that was the lowest on record since the U.S. began regular auctions of two-years in 1975, the average forecast in a Bloomberg survey of eight firms that bid on the sale was for a yield of 0.912 percent. Investors bid for 2.13 times the securities offered, compared with an average of 2.25 times at the prior six sales.
Sales of new homes declined last month to an annual pace of 407,000, lower than forecast, according to figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington. The median sales price declined 11.5 percent from a year earlier. Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. fell 8.6 percent in November, more than forecast, the National Association of Realtors said. Another report showed gross domestic product shrank in the third quarter at a 0.5 percent annual pace.
Volume Down
About $112 billion in Treasuries
traded yesterday, down 41 percent from the comparable day a year ago, according to Jersey City, New Jersey-based ICAP Plc, the world’s biggest broker of trades between banks. The six-month daily average was $271 billion. Trading volume surged last December as dealers and investors sought to add the safest securities prior to reporting their holdings and financial positions at year-end after the Fed lowered its
target rate one percentage point to 4.25 percent.
Treasury notes fell the week before Christmas 2007 on growing confidence that central banks’ efforts to revive bank lending would keep the U.S. economy from falling into a recession.
Government securities have returned 14.6 percent this year, the best annual performance since rising 18.5 percent in 1995, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s U.S. Treasury Master Index. Thirty-year bonds handed investors 17.6 percent in December, compared with a 7 percent return from 10-year securities and 0.4 percent from two-year debt, Merrill indexes show.
TED Spread
A deepening global recession and $1 trillion in writedowns and credit-market losses tied to U.S. mortgage securities drove investors to the relative safety of government debt.
The TED spread, a gauge of banks’ reluctance to lend, slipped below 150 basis points yesterday for the first time since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in mid- September amid speculation
interest rates near zero and promises of more government cash will help thaw credit.
The
spread, the difference between the London interbank offered rate, or
Libor, that banks charge each other for three- month loans and Treasury bill rates, narrowed to 146 basis points today, the lowest since Sept. 12, the last trading day before the Lehman collapse.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association recommended trading of Treasuries close tomorrow at 2 p.m. New York time and stay shut on Dec. 25 for the Christmas holiday.