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Comment by inflatableDodo | Hacker News Reader

Someone please correct me if I have misunderstood anything here, but having a better rate for a bond that matures after 3 months, than for one that matures after 10 years, is definitely a bit odd.

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If you purchase a 3m treasury bill, you will have to roll your capital into another in 3 months. If you expect the Fed to cut rates in the interim, you will receive a lower yield on that bill. The discount on the bill helps compensate for that risk.

I suppose the fed could cut rates in the next three months, however currently they are mostly making noises about not moving it up or down. Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any reality. I can find mainstream articles telling me why the fed must move rates up and others that insist that they must move them down. This makes me suspect that the fed is probably going to remain roughly fixed, at least for a bit.

> Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any reality.

Expectations of Fed rate hikes and cuts are reflected in the fed funds futures market, where participants estimate future values of the fed funds rate. Currently, the market implies a 94% chance of at least one rate cut by December [0].

[0] https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to...

Financial Times [1] points out the risk of trade war with China/Mexico and the economic slowdown this would cause is leading investors to expect Fed will have to cut rates.

[1] https://www.google.fi/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/855d23e2-83b7...

It’s not odd if you think that interest rates will go down in the future. If you believe that then you should buy longer term bonds to lock in the higher rate now.

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