4
Obama’s Home Mortgage Stimulus Plan
0 Comments | Posted by Singapore Housing Loans in Home Loans, Housing Loans, Singapore Property
President Obama Making Affordable Housing Plan” is a mortgage refinancing and modification of recently enacted plan to help millions of struggling homeowners having trouble paying your mortgage a little help. Mortgage Refinancing will give homeowners a low fixed interest rate of 2% which means hundreds of dollars per month in savings.
Obama Home Refinance Program Offer:
* Allows 2%* Fixed Rate Home Mortgage Refinance
* Reduce your monthly payments
* Lower your net interest rates
* Lower your loan balance
* Waive negatively accrued interest
* Avail extensions on payments
Find Out If You’re Eligible »
Under President Obama’ Home Arrordable Refinance Stimulus Plan, an estimated 9 million homeowners will be able to take advantage of this stimulus plan home mortgage and refinance or modify their home mortgages. These owners will be able to obtain a fixed interest rate of 2% of the mortgage. Homeowners facing foreclosure can even apply and be approved in order to save your home.
Some of the other benefits of mortgage refinancing Obama stimulus plan are:
* Reduction in the total amount of principal owed on the mortgage loan and a lower interest rate obtained from any refinancing or modification.
* Only homeowners, with more than a mortgage refinance will not be able to ultra low rate of 2%. This part of the plan is for homeowners with a mortgage
* Any mortgage-backed Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac is automatically eligible to refinance or modify at a low fixed rate, 2% of the mortgage.
* If the value of homes has decreased due to the mortgage crisis, or for any other reason, 15% or more, you will be eligible to refinance into a fixed-rate 2%. This means less foreclosures would occur as a result more confidence in the housing market and an overall improvement in home values.
* Using the plans to change his house payments mortgage homeowners may not exceed 31% of your gross monthly income.
* Refinancing a mortgage or modification of this plan means no closing costs or expenses.
* When a house becomes refinanced or modified through this package of government, a long-term loan is typical. Home Loans 20 to 30 years are more likely to help reduce monthly payments, leading to a better opportunity for homeowners to make the monthly payment.
Homeowners across the country will benefit greatly from this incentive to refinance plan. President Obama wants homeowners to stay in their homes, and not lose to foreclosure. This plan will restore confidence in the housing market, and that housing prices should rise again. Taking advantage of this plan is relatively easy since the requirements are quite minimal. Millions of homeowners now can begin to see significant savings through this plan Washington-backed government. Hundreds refinance your home and save, or possibly more importantly, your home.
4
Home Loans & Mortgages continue to fall
0 Comments | Posted by Singapore Housing Loans in Home Loans, Singapore Property
The cost of mortgages is continuing to fall and they are becoming more accessible to some borrowers, according to figures from Moneyfacts.
Data from September shows that the number of home loans available with a 20% deposit has risen, but availability has dropped for those offering 40%.
This is a shift in the trend seen in recent months which has seen the best rates offered to those able to pay the largest deposits.
However, take-up of loans remains slow.
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Deposits
Moneyfacts, a financial information service, said that the number of mortgages available to people offering a deposit of 10% or less remained small.
This has ruled some potential first-time buyers out of entering the property market and is very different to the situation seen during the housing boom earlier in the decade.
However, for those able to raise a deposit of 20%, the choice rose sharply to 352 mortgage products in September, compared with 326 in the previous month and 166 at the start of the year.
In contrast, the number of mortgage products on the market for those with a 40% deposit stood at 234 in September. This was the lowest number since the start of 2009.
“When banks increase the level that they are willing to lend against the value of a property, this usually means that risk increases and rates go up,” said Darren Cook of Moneyfacts.
“But we are seeing average mortgage rates continue with their slow decline and this could indicate that lenders are getting to grips with the threats of a new mortgage environment.
“Unfortunately this is still not filtering through to increase the number of mortgages approved and the market remains stagnant.”
The latest figures from the Bank of England showed that show that the number of mortgages approved for UK home buyers was barely changed in July at 48,722.
Net mortgage lending rose by only £86m in July, one of the lowest monthly increases on record.
20
Singapore Property Achieves New High in 2Q 2010
0 Comments | Posted by Singapore Housing Loans in Home Loans, Housing Loans, Singapore Property
Singapore real estate prices jumped to a record high in the second quarter as the city-state’s economic recovery broadened.
Private residential property prices rose 5.2 percent in the April-to-June period to the highest level since the government began the index in 1975, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said Thursday.
Prices leapt 5.6 percent in the first quarter and 7.4 percent in the fourth, bouncing back strongly after diving 25 percent in the 12 months to mid-2009.
Singapore’s low crime rate, good schools and low personal and corporate taxes have helped the island rank near the top of expatriate global quality-of-life surveys and attracted investors to the residential and office property markets. Singapore opened its first two casino-resorts this year, boosting tourist visits.
Singapore has sought to slow price gains by implementing a series of measures this year to discourage short-term speculative investment in property.
The government earlier this year imposed a 1 percent to 3 percent tax on residential properties sold within one year of purchase and lowered the loan-to-value limit to 80 percent from 90 percent on loans for private housing. Officials have also pledged to release more government land this year for real estate development to help boost housing supply.
Policymakers throughout Asia have grappled with balancing low interest rates to spur economic growth and the danger that cheap credit can fuel asset bubbles.
Investor confidence in Singapore has been bolstered by a soaring economy in the first half, led by a surge in manufacturing. Gross domestic product grew a record 15.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, and DBS Bank said it expects a 16 percent expansion in the second quarter.
DBS raised its 2010 growth forecast Wednesday to 13 percent from 10.3 percent and expects the manufacturing sector to grew 50 percent in the second quarter.
20
United State Housing Starts Dropping to Lowest Level Since October
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Treasuries rose, pushing two-year note yields to a record low level, as government data showing that U.S. housing starts fell last month to the least since October added to signs economic growth is fading.
Ten-year note yields dropped to the lowest in almost three weeks. Data from the Commerce Department showed U.S. builders cut back on a slump in home sales that followed the expiration of a government tax incentive. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is scheduled to give his semiannual report on the economy to Congress tomorrow and the next day.
“We’re headed to lower yields,” said Thomas L. di Galoma, head of U.S. rates trading at Guggenheim Partners LLC, a New York-based brokerage for institutional investors. “The data has been lukewarm at best. People want to see what the Fed is going to say, and that’s going to keep the market in a pretty narrow range.”
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 2.92 percent at 10:22 a.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. It touched 2.89 percent, the lowest since July 1. The 3.5 percent security maturing in May 2020 rose 14/32, or $4.38 per $1,000 face amount, to 104 30/32.
Two-year yields touched 0.5683 percent, the lowest ever.
The 10-year yield has dropped more than 1 percentage point from its 2010 high of 4.01 percent, set April 5, as mounting evidence of a slowdown in the global economy boosted demand for the safest U.S. government assets.
Range Trade
“The expected range trade between 2.915 percent and 3.13 percent can still contain prices given little data influence and a look at the chairman’s testimony Wednesday providing the market with info that could justify the lower level of rates,” John Spinello, chief technical strategist in New York at Jefferies Group Inc., wrote in a note to clients. The firm is one of 18 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve.
Stocks dropped, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index falling 0.8 percent.
Work began on 549,000 houses at an annual rate last month, down 5 percent from May, data showed today. Economists forecast starts would fall to a 577,000 annual rate, according to the median of 75 projections in a Bloomberg News survey.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index dropped to 14 this month, the lowest level since April 2009, from 16 in June, a report from the Washington- based group showed yesterday. Readings lower than 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.
Double-Dip Outlook
“The continuation of weak housing numbers continues to spook the market that the economy has a chance for a double dip” recession, said Tom Roth, senior Treasury trader in New York at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. “It’s not good. Yields are working to the lower side.”
Traders lowered bets on when the Fed may raise interest rates. Futures contracts on the CME Group Inc. exchange showed a 39 percent chance of the central bank boosting its target rate for overnight lending between banks by at least a quarter- percentage point by April, compared with a 62 percent likelihood a month ago.
The Fed has kept the rate in a record low range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.
Deutsche Bank AG cut its forecast for second-quarter economic growth to 3 percent from 4 percent. Ten-year yields will fall to 2.75 percent by year-end, Joseph LaVorgna and Carl J. Riccadonna, economists at the bank in New York, a primary dealer, wrote to clients yesterday.
Inflation Expectations
A gauge of trader expectations for consumer prices, the difference between yields on 10-year notes and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, narrowed to 1.69 percentage points from this year’s high of 2.49 percentage points in January. The five-year average is 2.13 percentage points.
Treasuries have returned 4.6 percent in the past three months, almost double the gain of sovereign bonds globally, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, as investors sought the safest securities while stocks tumbled. Bank of America’s index of global sovereign bonds returned 2.5 percent in the past three months. The MSCI World Index of stocks tumbled 12 percent in the period.
Still, return to recession is unlikely, said Robert Doll, a vice chairman at BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager. BlackRock is “overweight” U.S. stocks within its developed-markets portfolio, Doll said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Princeton, New Jersey.
20
Property Prices in Singapore Continues to Rise
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Private residential property prices in Singapore are continuing to rise with values increasing in the second quarter of the year and sales increasing, the latest figures show.
Average prime and central capital values increased by 8% and 7.6% respectively on the back of encouraging sales volumes, according to a new report from international consultants Jones Lang LaSalle.
The prime real estate market saw average capital values for typical prime properties reaching $1,350 per square foot, surpassing the last peak for the first time. But while average capital values for luxury prime properties reached $2,500 per square foot, they are still some 8.4% below peak.
The growth in the real estate market has also been supported by an improvement in rental income. Prime rentals have grown by 10.8% on average, over the first half of this year. Jones Lang LaSalle said this is supported by increased leasing demand from expatriates in the financial and petrochemical sectors.
There is some softening of overall demand from foreign real estate buyers due to uncertainties arising from the eurozone debt crisis but Chinese buyers are still prominent, the report also shows. It said Chinese buyers accounted for 18% of caveats lodged by foreigners in the secondary market in the second quarter of 2010, up from 6.2% in the first quarter of 2007.
It added that high net worth individuals from China are interested in property investment in the country as luxury home prices are around 24% below those in Hong Kong and 10% below their peak.
But Jones Lang LaSalle’s head of Research for Southeast Asia, Chua Yang Liang said the resale market is expected to see a further slowdown in both transactional volumes and price growth in the next half of the year, following cues from the primary market, which has seen fewer project launches and lower sales volume in recent months.
Indeed, the latest figures from the Urban Redevelopment Authority show that although prices are still rising, the pace of the increase is slowing. Average price increases of 5.2% in the second quarter were just below the 5.6% of the first three months of the year.
Joseph Tan, executive director (residential) at consultants CB Richard Ellis, also believes that prices will fall as measures such as the 1 to 3% tax on residential properties sold within one year of purchase and a lowering of the loan-to-value limit on private housing loans to 80% take effect.
According to Nicholas Mak, real estate lecturer at the Ngee Ann Polytechnic, property prices will rise at a slower pace this year, at a year-on-year rate of 12 to 18%.
20
House Prices in Asia Continue To Rise
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In recent months several countries have experimented with measures to cool bubbly property markets. Yet since The Economist’s global round-up of housing markets was last published in April, house-price inflation has accelerated in some of the very countries where the authorities have intervened to slow its rise.
Asia has been at the forefront of such interventions. In February Singapore’s government raised down-payment requirements and imposed stamp duties on all residential properties sold within a year of purchase in a bid to curb speculation. Despite these steps prices in the island nation rose by nearly 40% in the year to the end of the second quarter, after a rise of just over 25% in the year to the end of the first quarter. Singapore has overtaken Hong Kong to become the frothiest housing market among those we monitor.
House prices in Australia rose by 20% in the year to the end of the first quarter, faster than the 13.5% recorded in the 12 months to late 2009. More concerning, however, is our analysis of “fair value” in housing, which is based on comparing the current ratio of house prices to rents with its long-term average. By this measure Australian property is the most overvalued of any of the 20 countries we track. A frothy property market was one of the reasons for the Reserve Bank of Australia raising interest rates six times between October and May. Since then, the bank has become more sanguine about the state of the market. It cited “some signs that the earlier buoyancy in the housing market was easing” when keeping interest rates on hold in June.
China’s property-cooling measures, meanwhile, which were similar to Singapore’s, were announced in April. Our house-price figures for China now extend to the end of May. They help explain why the Chinese government had become more concerned. Year-on-year house-price inflation peaked in April at 12.8%, but has since moderated a bit.
Interactive: Compare countries housing data over time at economist.com/houseprices
The prospect that house prices in China are about to fall sharply worries some. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor, said this week: “You’re starting to see that collapse in property and it’s going to hit the banking system.” But Sun Mingchun, chief economist for China at Nomura, an investment bank, reckons that high down-payment requirements and the preponderance of cash purchases by Chinese homebuyers will help to limit the effects of any falls on the real economy.
For America the balance of evidence points to a renewed housing slowdown. Although both the Case-Shiller national and ten-city indices are up year-on-year, the national index fell during the three months to the end of March. The FHFA index, which excludes houses that are financed with large mortgages, was still down compared with a year earlier. More recent home-sales data have been similarly downbeat. Sales of new homes declined by 33% from April to May, thanks to the expiry of a tax credit. Just 28,000 new units were sold during May, the lowest total on record for that month. In Asia policymakers are trying to prick a bubble. In America they are still dealing with the consequences of the last one.
20
Singapore Property Hits New Record High
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Singapore real estate prices jumped to a record high in the second quarter as the city-state’s economic recovery broadened.
Private residential property prices rose 5.2 per cent in the April-to-June period to the highest level since the government began the index in 1975, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said Thursday.
Prices leapt 5.6 per cent in the first quarter and 7.4 per cent in the fourth, bouncing back strongly after diving 25 per cent in the 12 months to mid-2009.
Singapore’s low crime rate, good schools and low personal and corporate taxes have helped the island rank near the top of expatriate global quality-of-life surveys and attracted investors to the residential and office property markets.
Singapore opened its first two casino-resorts this year, boosting tourist visits.
Singapore has sought to slow price gains by implementing a series of measures this year to discourage short-term speculative investment in property.
The government earlier this year imposed a 1 per cent to 3 per cent tax on residential properties sold within one year of purchase and lowered the loan-to-value limit to 80 per cent from 90 per cent on loans for private housing.
Officials have also pledged to release more government land this year for real estate development to help boost housing supply.
Policymakers throughout Asia have grappled with balancing low interest rates to spur economic growth and the danger that cheap credit can fuel asset bubbles.
By the end of last year, Singapore prime residential property was selling at $1,500 to $2,000 per square foot – still less than the $2,000 to $2,500 per square foot in Hong Kong, Asia’s most expensive property market, according London-based real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
Investor confidence in Singapore has been bolstered by a soaring economy in the first half, led by a surge in manufacturing. Gross domestic product grew a record 15.5 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, and DBS Bank said it expects a 16 per cent expansion in the second quarter.
DBS raised its 2010 growth forecast Wednesday to 13 per cent from 10.3 per cent and expects the manufacturing sector to grow 50 per cent in the second quarter.
20
Singapore Private Home Prices Surpass 1996 Peak
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PRICES of private residential properties have crossed the peak reached in 1996 in the second quarter, according to flash estimates by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
The private-residential-property price index, based on URA estimates, rose from 175.0 points in Q1 to 184.1 points in Q2.
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While this increase of 5.2 per cent is lower compared with the 5.6 per cent rise in the previous quarter, the preliminary estimate of the Q2 residential price index, at 184.1 points, is higher than the market peak of 181.4 points back in Q2 1996, said Mr Joseph Tan, executive director (residential) at CB Richard Ellis.
Prices rose the most, by 5.7 per cent in the quarter, among non-landed private residential properties in the Outside Central Region.
“This could be attributed to the price points set by new launches such as Tree House and The Minton, as well as rising prices of resale transactions in locations where several sites from the government land sales (GLS) programme had been sold in the past six to ninemonths,” said Mr Tan.
It was reported last month in The Business Times that May’s top seller was The Minton in Hougang, with 204 units sold at a median price of $849 psf. Tree House in Chestnut Avenue was one of April’s top sellers, at a median price of $835 psf.
Successful tenders for three residential GLS sites awarded in May were bullish. For example, Keppel Land (Mayfair), the developer which won the site located in Boon Lay Way/Lakeside Drive, bid $499 psf per plot ratio, which could translate into a break-even price of $800-$850 psf, said Ngee Ann Polytechnic real-estate lecturer Nicholas Mak. That would outprice other condominiums in the same vicinity by as much as 40 per cent.
In the Core Central Region (CCR), properties in the same category rose by 5.1 per cent and, in the Rest of Central Region (RCR), by 4.5 per cent.
Back in Q1 2010, it was the price index for the RCR which showed the highest increase of 7.2 per cent, followed by 4.5 per cent in the CCR and 3.9 per cent in the OCR, noted Mr Tan.
Mr Mak expects that home prices will rise at a slower pace this year, at a year-on-year rate of 12 to 18 per cent.
“By the fourth quarter of 2010, the overall price level in the high-end CCR may finally surpass the peak price level that was last seen in Q1 2008,” he said.
In the long term, ample supply of residential land by the Government through its land sales programme will ensure a more stable supply, said Mr Tan.
“As sales momentum becomes less frenzied, home prices will stabilise,” he said. Earlier this year, to discourage short-term speculative investment in property, the Government imposed a 1 per cent to 3 per cent tax on residential properties sold within one year of purchase and lowered the loan-to-value limit on private housing loans to 80 per cent, from 90 per cent.
It also said it would release more residential-development sites, as well as build more Housing Board flats, to meet demand and curb rising prices.
The property peak of 1996 had been fomenting in 1994 and 1995, when home prices raced ahead of gross domestic product growth. However, the Government’s anti-speculative measures and the Asian financial crisis reversed the rise in prices.
20
Housing Starts Decline as Dollar Gains Against Euro & Yen
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The dollar rose from a two-month low versus the euro and for a second day against the yen as declines in equities and U.S. housing starts last month renewed concern that the global economic recovery is faltering.
The Canadian dollar fell after the nation’s central bank said it may slow the pace of interest-rate increases after boosting the target for the second time in less than two months. The euro weakened agaist most of all its most traded counterparts after Hungary’s borrowing costs rose to a 19-week high at its first debt auction since international creditors suspended talks with the government.
“We’re starting to see some further signs of weakness and that’s going to continue to drive the yen crosses and support the dollar,” said Brian Dolan, chief strategist at FOREX.com, a unit of online-currency trading firm Gain Capital in Bedminster, New Jersey. “In Europe we had a failure in the Hungarian debt auction and that is rekindling some concern in the European debt crisis.”
The yen declined to 86.90 per dollar at 9:53 a.m. in New York, from 86.69 yesterday, after climbing to 86.27 on July 16, the strongest since Dec. 1. The euro dropped 0.4 percent to $1.2889, after reaching $1.3029, the highest level since May 10. Canada’s dollar fell 0.1 percent to C$1.0560 per U.S. dollar after earlier strengthening as much as 0.6 percent.
Housing starts fell in June to the lowest level since October as a slump in sales following the expiration of a government tax incentive caused U.S. builders to cut back. Work began on 549,000 houses last month, fewer than forecast by the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and down 5 percent from May, Commerce Department figures showed.
Bank of Canada
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 1 percent and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 0.3 percent.
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney raised the target rate for overnight loans between commercial banks a quarter point to 0.75 percent, a decision expected by all 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The growth forecast was cut to 3.5 percent from 3.7 percent for this year and to 2.9 percent from 3.1 percent for 2011, according to a statement from the bank.
The yen dropped versus 12 of its 16 major counterparts as speculation lingered that the Bank of Japan will intervene to weaken the currency after it climbed to a seven-month high last week.
The dollar’s 14-day relative strength index against the yen, a gauge that compares the magnitude of gains and losses, was at 29 yesterday, below the 30 threshold that some traders see as a sign a price has fallen too far and is poised to rally.
Bank of Japan
The Bank of Japan may ease monetary policy if the yen stays around 85 against the dollar, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Central bank Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said last week a stronger yen and stock declines may hurt the economy.
European regulators are examining the strength of 91 banks to determine whether they can survive potential losses on sovereign-debt holdings. Results will be released July 23. Spanish officials including Finance Minister Elena Salgado said last week they’re confident about the results of the stress tests on Spanish banks.
“Our bank credit analysts expect positive results and favor being long risk heading into the release of the European bank stress tests,” said David Forrester, a currency economist at Barclays Capital in Singapore. “For the euro, we expect an initial rally, but the most important change would be a reduction in the likelihood of a large downside move.”
Reserve Bank
The 16-nation currency has rallied 5.2 percent this month after seven straight months of decline. The euro’s gains are close to petering out amid “fragile market confidence,” Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said.
“Confidence will take a hit if European economic growth begins to fade,” Greg Gibbs, a currency strategist at RBS in Sydney, wrote in a report. “It’s hard to see confidence in European debt markets improving further from here. Perhaps the stress tests will deliver one more spurt of confidence. But it’s close to a peak and so is the euro.”
Reserve Bank of Australia officials said in minutes of their July 6 meeting released today that they’ll use the results of European bank stress tests and local inflation figures due next week to decide whether to resume raising interest rates.
Australia’s dollar strengthened versus 15 of the 16 major currencies, snapping a three-day losing streak.
20
Treasuries Gain as Housing Starts Decline
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Treasuries rose, pushing two-year note yields to a record low level, as government data showing that U.S. housing starts fell last month to the least since October added to signs economic growth is fading.
Ten-year note yields decreased to a two-week low. Commerce Department data showed housing starts at an annualized rate of 549,000 in June, below the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 75 economists for a pace of 577,000. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.8 percent.
“It will solidify the feeling that the housing market is still in a muck,” John Spinello, chief technical strategist in New York at Jefferies Group Inc., said before the report. The firm is one of 18 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell 4 basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 2.93 percent at 8:41 a.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. It touched 2.91 percent, the lowest since July 6. Two-year note yields fell to 0.5764 percent, a record low.
The 10-year yield dropped more than 1 percentage point from a high for the year of over 4 percent, set April 5, as mounting evidence of a slowdown in the global economy boosted demand for the safest U.S. government assets.
Deutsche Bank AG, another primary dealer, cut its forecast for second-quarter economic growth to 3 percent from 4 percent. Ten-year yields will fall to 2.75 percent by year-end, Joseph LaVorgna and Carl J. Riccadonna, economists at the bank in New York, wrote to clients yesterday.
Confidence Falls
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index dropped to 14 this month, the lowest level since April 2009, from 16 in June, data from the Washington- based group showed yesterday. Readings lower than 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.
A slowdown in U.S. economic growth means there will still be demand for Treasuries, said Yusuke Tanaka, a senior dealer in Singapore at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., a unit of Japan’s largest publicly traded bank.
“Yields will go down or remain at this low level,” Tanaka said. “There’s still a flight to quality in U.S. Treasuries.” He bought last week, he said.
Traders are cutting bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate increases as the economy slows.
Rate Bets
Futures contracts on the CME Group Inc. exchange showed a 39 percent chance of the Fed boosting its target lending rate for overnight bank loans at least a quarter-percentage point by April, compared with a 62 percent chance a month ago.
The difference between yields on 10-year notes and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, a gauge of trader expectations for consumer prices, narrowed to 170 basis points from this year’s high of 2.49 percentage points in January. The five-year average is 2.13 percentage points.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is scheduled to give his semiannual report on the economy to Congress tomorrow and the next day. The central bank has kept its target for overnight lending in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.
“I can’t think he will back away from the relatively dovish tone we had in the last minutes” of the Federal Open Markets Committee’s meeting on June 22-23, said Vincent Chaigneau, head of currency and fixed-income strategy at Societe Generale SA in London. “For bonds that remains quite friendly.”
Treasuries have returned 4.6 percent in the past three months, almost double the gain of sovereign bonds globally, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, as investors sought the safest securities while stocks tumbled.
Bank of America’s index of global sovereign bonds returned 2.5 percent in the past three months. The MSCI World index of shares tumbled 10 percent in the period, after accounting for reinvested dividends.
Still, return to recession is unlikely, said Robert Doll, a vice chairman at BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager. BlackRock is “overweight” U.S. stocks within its developed-markets portfolio, Doll said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Princeton, New Jersey.
