Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities

We all knew this was coming. The Pentagon Federal Credit Union was offering a 5-year insured CD at 3% in the months of December and January, but now has pushed that rate down to 2%, still a good rate but not above-market.

PenFed’s 7-year CD also was paying 3% but now has re-set to 2.25%.

It was a good deal while it lasted, and I am sure it brought PenFed a lot of new customers, which was probably its strategy. I was one of them, as I explained in a previous post.

BankRate.com says the average 5-year CD is paying 1.5%, but there are some outliers, such as Barclays and EverBank at 2.12%.

The Federal Reserve did it right yesterday, when its Open Market Committee stuck to its program and announced another $10-billion-a-month cut in its economy-stimulating asset-purchase program.

This decision came despite panic selling in emerging markets, which had relied on the Fed’s economic stimulus. The result has been interest-rate hikes in many countries, needed to support swooning currencies. And it hasn’t been pretty.

The Fed could have blinked, it has before. But this time it didn’t. In its Wednesday statement, the Fed stayed the much-needed course of removing itself from manipulating the bond markets. This is long overdue. The Fed committee noted that the economy is improving, the unemployment rate is declining, and …. inflation remains too low.

The Committee sees the risks to the outlook for the economy and the labor market as having become more nearly balanced. The Committee recognizes that inflation persistently below its 2 percent objective could pose risks to economic performance, and it is monitoring inflation developments carefully …

Beginning in February, the Committee will add to its holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $30 billion per month rather than $35 billion per month, and will add to its holdings of longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $35 billion per month rather than $40 billion per month.

Remember when the Federal Reserve announced on Dec. 18 that it would being gradually tapering its bond-buying program in January? At the time, there wasn’t an immediate  reaction in the bond market, because tapering had already been priced in.

But the stock market seemed to love the news that the economy was on firm footing, and stocks had a nice end-of-year rebound, as shown in this chart, comparing the TIP ETF (in blue, holding a broad range of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) and SPY (in red, the S&P 500 ETF):

Going into 2014, the TIPS market was in shambles and the stock market was roaring. Does anyone remember this? It was just 30 days ago! Here is the 2013 chart to provide a reminder:

And so now, in the opening month of 2014, the stock market is facing a long-overdue and actually health thing: a correction. And in turn, TIPS yields have sunk as investors flee to the safety of Treasurys.  The bond bust has been broken, at least for the time being.

Here is the chart for January 2014:

Conclusion. The Federal Reserve is getting a great deal here: 1) It is gradually getting out of the bond-buying business and 2) it is getting lower-long term interest rates (and lower borrowing costs for the Treasury) at the same time. Who thought that would happen?

The stock market, by definition, is a risky investment. The Federal Reserve should not be in the business of propping up risk, building wealth for risk investors at the cost of no-risk investors. This has been happening for the last three years, as interest rates on super-safe investments fell well below inflation.

For more on this, read Michael Ashton’s excellent blog, ‘Shots Fired,’ posted yesterday.  He theorizes that the strong gains of recent years will mean much-reduced gains in the future:

Yes, I have noted often that the market is overvalued and in December put the 10-year expected real return for stocks at only 1.54%.  …. The high levels of valuation make any decline potentially dangerous since the levels that will attract serious value investors are so far away. But that is not tantamount to forecasting a waterfall decline, which I have not done and will not do.

I won’t be following the Treasury’s Floating Rate Notes (FRNs) because I don’t see them as a logical investment – at least in 2014 – for the small-scale investor. But yesterday’s auction was historic, introducing a new product to the Treasury lineup. And so …

The Treasury’s first-ever two-year FRN, CUSIP 912828WK2, auctioned with a yield premium of 0.045% over the 13-week Treasury. Let me do the math for you:

• 0.040% = yield on 13-week Treasury
• 0.045% = the FRN’s yield premium
• 0.085% = current yield for CUSIP 912828WK2

I seem to say this a lot, but one more time: No one is going to get rich buying FRNs.

As an alternative, you could just roll over 13-week Treasuries and get a current yield of 0.4%, but retain total flexibility if rates rise substantially.

Or, you could buy a 2-year nominal Treasury yielding 0.36%, 27 basis points higher. In fact, if short term interest rates fail to increase more than 27 basis points in the next two years, this FRN is a two-year loser against the 2-year Treasury.

Or, you could buy a two-year insured bank CD and get about 1.15%, meaning that short term rates would have to rise 1.06% to make that FRN pay off.

Or, you could buy a two-year TIPS on the secondary market and get a yield of -1.128, plus inflation. So if inflation averages 2% over two years, you’d get a yield of 0.872%. Plus you’d get two years of inflation protection.

All of these options look more desirable than a two-year FRN, which is designed to meet the needs of massive-scale investors, not the small-scale investor.

One more thing. Keep in mind that FRNs are tied to super-short interest rates, which the Federal Reserve is committed to keeping low into 2016, and TIPS are tied to inflation, which the Fed is committed to raising, right now.

The Treasury announced last week it will hold its first-ever auction of Floating Rate-Notes (FRNs) on Thursday, Jan. 29. This is the first new Treasury product in 17 years, following the launch of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities in 1997.

I’ve already noted that these FRNs look like a bad deal for small investors, and are actually designed for the large-scale holdings of hedge funds, money-market funds, pension funds and foreign governments, where they could lower volatility of short-term investments.

Here is info from that previous post to fill in some basic facts on FRNs:

What is an FRN? The Treasury says: “An FRN is a security that has an interest payment that can change over time.  As interest rates rise, the security’s interest payments will increase.  Similarly, as interest rates fall, the security’s interest payments will decrease.” Read the Treasury’s term sheet for FRNs.

So it is important to note that inflation is not part of the picture for FRNs. While TIPS and I Bonds are tied to future inflation, the FRN is tied to future interest rates, specifically short-term rates.

What will be the index for FRNs? The Treasury says, “FRNs will be indexed to the most recent 13-week Treasury bill auction High Rate, which is the highest accepted discount rate in a Treasury bill auction.” Depending on demand at auction, the FRN could end up yielding a few basis points more than the 13-week Treasury.

The current yield on a 13-week Treasury is a whopping 0.04% and that is down ‘substantially’ from  0.07% on Jan. 2, 2014. Obviously, no one gets rich investing in 13-week Treasurys.

But the new FRNs are expected to get a yield premium over a 13-week Treasury. How much of a premium? That’s the key question. The current 2-year Treasury yield is 0.37% so we know the premium won’t be more than 33 basis points. It will probably be a lot less, as noted in this Wall Street Journal story from Jan. 23:

Pricing of the new notes will be based off a yield spread over the rate on three-month Treasury bills, so as the bill yield rises, so will the rate on the two-year floater.

Some bond analysts expect the notes to offer about eight to nine basis points in extra yield. At the current 0.035% rate on three-month bills, that means an all-in yield of about 0.11% to 0.12%.

Investors will get a higher yield over time if the rate on a  13-week Treasury rises, but that doesn’t look likely in 2014 or 2015, based on the Federal Reserve’s commitment to keep short-term rates near zero.

The Wall Street Journal speculates there could be strong demand for these FRNs (which would lower the yield even more if bidding is strong):

The new notes also come at a time the Treasury has been scaling back supply of shorter-dated debt, given reduced cash needs with a lower government deficit. That has meant a group of investors fighting for a shrinking pool of Treasurys.

“Pricing will be determined by the combination of limited supply and strong investor demand, given the opportunity to maintain Treasury exposure but earn a spread over bills,” said the rate strategists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The new notes are expected to be particularly attractive to conservative money-market funds, where money must be invested in high-quality and shorter-term securities.

Even if you are interested in these FRNs, there is no need to jump aboard in this first auction. The Treasury will auction FRNs each month, with original issues in January, April, July, and October, and reopenings in the other months.

Or … just buy the TIPS maturing in January 2016 and you’ll get a yield of -1.34%, plus inflation. Not great, but if inflation averages 2% over the next 2 years, you’d get 0.66%, about 29 basis points higher than a 2-year Treasury.