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Are there fewer and fewer people wanting the huge amount of U.S. debt issued?
Recently, the sharp rise in international gold prices has attracted the attention of investors from almost all over the world. Behind the frenzied buying in the gold market, another safe-haven asset, U.S. Treasury bonds, presents a completely different scene of depression. A series of weak performance at U.S. Treasury auctions has stoked investor concerns that the market will struggle to absorb the massive issuance of Treasury debt. In the past week, after weak demand for the US$39 billion 10-year Treasury bond auction, the bond market sell-off triggered by higher-than-expected U.S. CPI in March intensified. Investors also showed little interest in the three-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury auctions. Behind the growing caution among bond market investors is the growing belief that U.S. inflation is not yet fully under control and that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates at multi-decade highs in the coming months or even years. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, known as the “anchor of global asset pricing” and the benchmark for pricing borrowing rates from mortgages to corporate loans, closed at around 4.5% last…
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The strong US dollar has started the “harvest” mode again: emerging markets have started a “currency defense war”!
“The U.S. dollar is our currency, but it’s your trouble” – As the U.S. dollar has been rising against the backdrop of recent declines in expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, this famous quote from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Connally more than half a century ago seems to be coming back again. It has become a major problem for many policymakers in emerging markets… Many investors in the foreign exchange market have recently been paying attention to whether the Japanese government will intervene to prevent the yen, which has already fallen below the 153 mark, from weakening further. But in fact, in emerging markets, many economies face exchange rate pressures no less than Japan. Some locals said the foreign exchange market has become a key battleground, as the dollar’s recent surge has put tremendous pressure on an increasing number of emerging economies to intervene. Market data shows that as investors continue to buy gold and the US dollar, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index weakened for the third consecutive day on Friday, approaching the low of the year. Almost…