Perspective on Interest Rates

William Bayne • January 22, 2020

Are rates going up or down in the future?

It is an interesting to contemplate on the direction of interest rates in both the near and long term.  Unfortunately there are not a lot of scenarios I can imagine that would justify interest rates going up.  I think there is no doubt the market is too hot, largely from this low interest rate environment we have lived in for the last decade, but increasing rates would have massive effects across all business sectors.  Perhaps a few questions to frame the thoughts:

  1. If interest rates move up how will businesses respond?  Clearly less investment, less borrowing.  
  2. If interest rates move up what happens to asset pricing? Clearly assets prices will move down.
  3. What happens to the stock market?  More of the above.
  4. What happens to the bond market? Yields increase but pricing comes down.  That becomes a bit of a vicious cycle and we see a lot of compression on pricing and quite frankly yields.
  5. Currency market?  Dollar denominated assets become more attractive and we see more foreign investment piling into an already over rev'd economy.
  6. Long term benefit?  Possibly, could be like taking some bitter medicine.  Take the medicine now so the future outcome becomes more predictable.  reset some pricing and slow things down to prolong an expansion.  Trouble with this thought is that we have become a giant globally connected economy.  
All of this is complicated for the future and makes the likelihood of increasing rates unlikely for the foreseeable future.  It also acts as a gravity pull on business returns and yields.  Earning large yields going forward is simply going to get tougher and tougher as rates diminish.  Expansion to survive I fear will become the new mantra.  

Interesting time to live.
Billy

The World's Most Accurate Economist

January 23, 2020
I thought this was a great article this morning and agree with the analysis. Enjoy. Thanks Billy Business Insider Article

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