Thursday, September 18, 2008

The yield on 3-month U.S. Treasuries....Way Down

Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:00pm EDT


NEW YORK, Sept 17 (Reuters) - The yield on 3-month U.S. Treasury bills sell to 0.02 percent early afternoon New York trade on Wednesday amid investors' panicked scramble into the safe haven of ultra short-dated government securities, traders said.


The 3-month U.S. Treasury bill yield "last traded at 0.02 percent as an actual trade and may have traded negative earlier today," said Sean Murphy, Treasuries trader at RBC Capital Markets in New York, shortly after 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT).


The last time the 3-month U.S. T-bill yield was at or below zero was in January 1940, said Bryan Taylor, chief economist with Global Financial Data in Los Angeles.


Murphy cited "a flight to quality into the Treasury bill market." "People are just panicking and they just want their principal," he said.


Andrew Brenner, analyst at MF Global Inc, said the 3-month bill traded at 0.02 percent.


"Probably there's disappointment in the Fed's decision (to hold interest rates unchanged) yesterday and what's transpiring is that banks are just pulling back and not lending and not being able to get the funding they need," Murphy said.


(Reporting by John Parry; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)


© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


No comments: