The incredible LIBOR rate-rigging scandal is huge, and it's only going to grow in scope: Many of the world's largest banks have already been implicated in manipulating interest rates that are tied to some $800 trillion in loans and securities.
The European Securities and Markets Authority has begun reviewing how Standard & Poor's, Fitch, and Moody's Investors Service evaluate banks, and if the big three ratings agencies aren't shaking in their boots, maybe they should be.
That giant sucking sound you hear is money -- lots of it -- fleeing global stock markets for the safe havens of the U.S., German, and U.K. sovereign bond markets. It's fear talking -- fear of intensifying crisis in the eurozone.
Sunday's elections in France and Greece were a firm vote against austerity, and regardless of the merits of either side of the debate, that means the future of the eurozone is again in doubt. Here's why the bond markets care so much -- and why you should, too.
Ask the people who invest billions for a living to name their favorite picks for 2012 and you'll get a smorgasbord worthy of a holiday party: Brazilian stocks, U.S. junk bonds, and government debt from Colombia. Ask them what they dislike and they'll name one of the top-performing investments this year: U.S. government bonds.
Investors and officials in Jefferson County, Ala., are trying to negotiate a deal to avoid bankruptcy by Thursday's deadline. If they're unsuccessful, the county could end up with the largest Chapter 9 filing in U.S. history, which could rattle the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market.
After respected banking analyst Meredith Whitney rattled the municipal bond market with her prediction of hundreds of billions of dollars in muni defaults, small investors dumped the bonds. That dire prediction may yet come true, but there are a few types of munis that still carry virtually no risk.
U.S. bond prices fell Wednesday on violence in Libya. An auction of $35 billion in five-year notes met with little demand, while 10-year Treasury prices fell 22 cents per $100 invested. Stocks also declined as a result of the Libyan instability.
Washington has been borrowing Social Security's surpluses for decades and issuing IOUs in return. However, the ability to pay those IOUs depends on the Treasury borrowing more money on global bond markets at affordable rates. That's hardly a sure thing.
For years, policymakers have reassured the public that Social Security will be solvent for decades. But outlay and income data from the Treasury reveal that Social Security is already deep in the red -- by $76 billion in 2010 alone. That's just the beginning.
The Spanish government's successful bond auction Thursday reassured investors, pushing the euro to a one-week high against the dollar. Portugal and Italy also tested the bond market this week with their own auctions. But how much appetite for bonds do investors really have?
With the fears of a European sovereign debt crisis growing worse, the Spanish government said Wednesday that it's taking several measures to stop the fiscal contagion from reaching its shores, including selling a 30% stake in its national lottery business, Bloomberg reported.
The dollar-stocks see-saw -- in which the two move in opposite directions -- seems to be holding up. And over the longer term, there's good reason for the dollar to stay on its recent upward trend, which would be bad news for stock prices.
The U.S. must act to rein in its massive budget deficits or face the risk of a bond market crisis, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said Sunday. If deficits begin to frighten the bond market, interest rates will rise, undermining the recovery, and possibly causing a double-dip recession.
A day after announcing a second round of quantitative easing, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke responded to critics in a Washington Post op-ed that explains how the program will work and why it won't spark inflation.
China's holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds are so huge that they'd be a financial "weapon of mass destruction" if Beijing were dump them all quickly. But a closer look at the data and some recent trends suggests that China's power in this regard is overrated.
Officially, Europe's fiscal health is on the mend, but each time the Continent's debt crisis is declared history, some ugly financial news quickly emerges to undercut those claims. Indeed, the real eurozone meltdown may still lurking beyond the horizon.
BP Plc may sell as much as $3.5 billion in debt as early as today, marking the oil giant's first bond sale since its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April.
Many investors are trying to make themselves feel safer in this uncertain economy by jumping out of stocks, buying bonds or even dabbling in higher risks looking for bigger returns. But that sort of short-term strategy could jeopardize your portfolio.
In a welcome sign of investor confidence in an economic recovery, U.S. interest rates grew for the third day in a row as people moved funds from bonds to stocks. But will higher interest rates slow the housing market?
A better-than-expected reading on the job market propelled stocks to their fourth straight daily gain, giving the first few days of the month an uplifting boost after the worst August for U.S. equities in nearly a decade.
Work is moving forward on a new light rail link from downtown Denver to its airport, backed by an unusual combination of federal loans and private investment. The project will create thousands of jobs, and add a much-needed public transit option for reaching the nation's fifth-busiest airport.
Fears of an economic slowdown have sent stocks reeling and bonds soaring. With companies sitting on record piles of cash and easy credit available, this may lay the foundation for a potential mergers and acquisitions boom -- and help revive equities.
Now that credit rating agencies can be sued for issuing inflated ratings, they're refusing to allow their ratings to be used to sell bonds. Unfortunately, since some types of bonds are required to have such ratings, those parts of the bond market are shutting down.
Stocks took an uncomfortably circuitous route to posting broad-based gains Tuesday, as a better-than-expected outlook on global recovery from Australia's central bank was tested by the bond market's bleaker assessment of the U.S. economy.
Many analysts thought U.S. rates would be rising by now. But with the European debt crisis, they've fallen as investors fled to safety. What happens next is hardly clear, so it's vital to have a cogent plan. And that doesn't mean staying in cash.
Stock markets are closed for Good Friday, but in their short holiday sessions, the stock futures and bonds markets reacted positively to the news that 162,000 new jobs had been created in March.
