A central bank facility absorbed a record $485 billion of cash on Thursday, showing the Fed’s ability to seize control of the financial system. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been tweeting near-daily updates of the following chart, which shows the amount of cash placed at the Federal Reserve's overnight reverse repurchase facility. Use ...

The U.S. has avoided selling T-bills at negative rates. It might be tougher to say no this time around. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is facing a conundrum that, at first glance, might hardly seem like one at all. Investors may soon be willing to pay more than 100 cents on every dollar for U.S. Treasury bills. But current rules won't allow ...

Yes, the Treasury is borrowing trillions of dollars. No, it won’t have any trouble doing so. The U.S. Treasury Department rarely surprises bond traders when it announces its borrowing plans for the coming quarter. But like many things during the coronavirus pandemic, precedents no longer seem to apply. Staring down a budget deficit approaching ...

U.S. Treasuries have barely budged in the face of staggering labor market data. If the past two days of trading in U.S. Treasuries are any guide, yield-curve control might have already reached the world’s biggest bond market. On Thursday, Labor Department data showed a record 6.65 million people filed jobless claims in the week ended March ...

Some companies’ debt burdens are too heavy to withstand the economic shock from the coronavirus outbreak. Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that “there is an infinite amount of cash in the Federal Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure there’s enough ...

If the market is right about future inflation, Treasuries now look like a relative bargain. There’s something strange happening in the $17 trillion U.S. Treasuries market: Yields actually look compelling. Not nominal yields, mind you. Yes, on Tuesday the yields on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries shot higher by 36 and 40 basis ...

From sovereign debt to risky credit, traders globally had a week for the record books. If I had to summarize this past week in the $100 trillion global bond market, it’d be fairly straightforward: Traders are enormously fearful of what the coronavirus outbreak will mean for the world economy and adjusting their positions accordingly. Yet ...

The former Fed chairman says to remain open to subzero rates as backlash to the policy intensifies. Just when it seemed like the tide had officially turned against the experiment of negative interest rates, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke entered the fray. In his address to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting ...

Fed Governor Brainard makes a case for capping Treasury yields in a zero-rate policy environment, a move that’s roiled the market for Japanese debt. “Brainard — wow.” That was how Russ Certo, managing director of rates at Brean Capital, summarized remarks this week from Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard. Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital ...

Markets may be premature to think U.S.-China trade tensions will force Jerome Powell’s hand. The standard playbook for bond traders during periods of market volatility used to be buying 10-year Treasuries. Lately, though, they appear to be taking a more short-term view. Upon news that China was escalating the trade war with the U.S. by ...

The biggest names in finance all have an opinion on the polarizing theory, but not a plan. There’s no avoiding it: If you work on Wall Street, you should probably have an opinion on modern monetary theory. Just this week alone, BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink weighed in, calling it “garbage,” while former New York ...

Policy makers signal they don’t want to rock the boat. Financial markets demanded that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ease up on tightening monetary policy. For most of his tenure, he didn’t let equity price swings knock the central bank off course. Until now. Perhaps the most honest instant reaction on Wall Street came from Jim ...