Friday, September 7, 2007

T-Bill and Yen Update

T-Bills and the yen index are very important right now. I'm going to add a third chart to this, which is the SHY. This is the ETF for the 1-3 year Treasury market. It's a bit broader than simply looking at T-Bills.

Here's the yen, which is an obvious proxy for the carry-trade (borrowing where rates are cheap and lending where returns are higher). Notice the yen is consolidating above long-term resistance. While we haven't seen a move above this consolidation, we also haven't seen a move below this area either. A move over this area of consolidation will probably spell some real trouble for the market because it will indicate traders are probably moving away from the carry trade.



T-Bills

T-Bills -- the extreme short-end of the Treasury market -- have moved back to near post-run-up levels. This is a good sign overall.



However, the short-end of the Treasury curve is still consolidating advances after it broke through resistance. This indicates traders are still concerned about the credit markets and are simply parking money in short-term conservative debt for now.