Wall Street is expecting the suckers (foreigners) to buy it all. They seem to have forgotten that, thanks to Wall Street, these foreigners have major financial problems of their own. I strongly believe that most foreign investors' funds will be spent in their home markets, buying their own bonds, and funding their own governments' fiscal needs.

When this happens, the Federal Reserve will have to resort to cranking up the printing press to warp speed so that there is enough Monopoly money available to purchase the massive amount of Treasuries which will be issued. Can you say inflation?

MIS-PRICED ASSET - TIPS

In all of the Treasury market nuttiness, there are Treasury securities which have been completely mis-priced. These securities are Treasury Inflation Protected Securities or TIPS. The interest and principal on these securities are indexed to the U.S. Consumer Price Index or CPI.

TIPS have become mis-priced because liquidity has fled the TIPS market, just as liquidity has fled from the equity markets. After all, why would anyone want to own TIPS when everyone “knows” that deflation is here to stay and inflation is dead forever, right?

Wrong! For reasons stated earlier, I believe we will see a mass conflagration of the funds that are currently rushing into Treasury securities at zero or one per cent because of liquidity concerns. And once again, we will see that the conventional Wall Street wisdom will be proven incorrect.

I don't believe we will ever see massive deflation in this country. I believe that the only possibility of  deflation in the US would be if we truly see 1930s conditions – where the US GDP collapsed by 50% in nominal terms and unemployment rates were at 25%  and corporate defaults were in the 15% range. Sorry, that scenario is not in the cards. What is much more likely is a return of inflation.

TIPS ETFS
           
An investor can buy an individual TIPS bond, but with the current lack of liquidity the spread between the bid and asked of such securities is unusually large. A better choice may be an ETF which invests in TIPS securities.

Currently, investors have two choices for TIPS ETFs. They are SPDR Barclays Capital TIPS ETF with the symbol IPE and the iShares Lehman TIPS Bond Fund with the symbol TIP.

Both ETFs have many similarities – both ETFs have very low expense fees, both ETFs are down between 7% and 8% for the year, and both ETFs also have a similar average duration of the TIPS bonds that they hold of approximately 7 ½ years.

The only difference seems to be that TIP trades with a higher daily average volume than does IPE and is therefore a bit more of a liquid security.

Due to the current mis-pricing I believe is occurring in the US Treasury market, both TIP and IPE are currently yielding in the 8% range. Keep in mind – this is an 8% yield that investors are receiving on a US Treasury security!

Investors are urged to jump on the bargains occurring currently with regard to the TIPS market. I believe that an immediate purchase of either IPE or TIP will be a wise choice.

Regards,