But there are some strange and perplexing crumbs to collect from news reports this morning. Yesterday we learned that for the first time in 70 years, yields on 90-day U.S. government securities were briefly negative. Investors - if you can call them that - were happy to loan money to the U.S. government for 90 days - and lose money.

Normally, the only thing that could explain such an unusual preference for liquidity at the expense of return is abject terror of equities. But stocks have been moving on up nicely. The plunge in short-term yields can't be explained in terms of "risk aversion." So what's behind it?

It's a pretty interesting question if you simply phrase it: what kind of investor is happy to lose money over 90 days? Is the move to the short-end of the U.S. yield curve part of a broader shift out of longer-dated maturities (10 year notes and 30-year bonds).

Even the New York Times is starting to freak out about the amount of U.S. debt that must be rolled over in the next four years. The times article points out what we pointed out at the beginning of the month: U.S. debt is far more interest rate sensitive than ever before, which makes it potentially far more expensive to service if interest rates spike.

But that doesn't get us any closer to explaining the near-zero short-term yields. Granted, they were low to begin with. Maybe they are only unusual because they descended from such a low base to begin with. But is there another explanation that sheds light on what's going on in the markets?

One possibility, and we admit we are speculating here, is that banks are beefing up on liquid assets to bolster their capital positions. Whether this action corresponds with the end of the year or some other force, well, we have no idea. But without a corresponding fall in some other asset, the fall in short-term bond yields must represent a preference by institutions for T-bills and notes right now.

Our colleague Kris Sayce thinks institutions might be using T-Bills as collateral for other loans, pyramiding their way up to new balance sheet growth. It's possible. It's also possible that banks are buffering their capital positions in anticipation of...turbulence.

In today's Age, Eric Johnston begins his story with the headline, "Australian banks fail new capital test." Gee, that sounds familiar! "Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has warned that nearly all the world's big banks - including Australia's major lenders - have insufficient funds to cover their lending exposures and risk a ratings downgrade unless they move to bolster their balance sheets over the next 18 months.'

That might sound odd, considering that Aussie banks tapped equity markets for $20 billion in new equity last year. But did the new money actually bolster the balance sheet? Johnston reports that, "While Australian banks benefited from having a large exposure to low-risk residential mortgages, S&P said a narrow geographic and business base counted as a negative. It also noted that the capital raisings by the local banks had been used mainly to fund acquisitions or balance sheet growth."

More home lending baby!

It's probably a stretch - given we have no evidence whatsoever - to suggest that global banks (Australia's included) are bolstering capital by moving into short-term U.S. debt. It's also arguable that U.S. debt - even short-term near cash bills and notes - are a quality asset to be adding to your capital mix. But it's a lead and we're chasing it down.

Why does it matter? Well, the last time yields went negative like this was in 1938. That preceded a collapse in the stock market and the onset of the "Great" part of the U.S. Depression. Of course in 1938 the Fed began tightening up monetary policy again (prematurely, some argue). It won't do that today.

Meanwhile, some other troubling pieces of information from the bond market. Bloomberg reports that Telstra, "scrapped a domestic bond sale plan after it couldn't reach an agreement with investors on the terms of the securities. " Apparently bondholders "wanted the 10-year debt to include assurances compensating them if Telstra's credit rating gets downgraded."

Geez. Creditors are getting pretty choosy these days, aren't they?

There are other stories we'd like to have a closer look at today. For instance, a Brazilian steel-maker has plans to buy 16.5% of coal explorer Riversdale Mining for $190 million. This fits the pattern we described earlier this week of major international companies seeking to buy independent junior miners in order to guarantee resource supply. We'll have to ask Dr. Cowie what he thinks.

Time to board the plane now and cross the Tasman. We'll report tomorrow from the east coast of the North Island. Until then.

Dan Denning
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

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Lately, the stock market has been grabbing most of the headlines for its surprisingly strong performance since last March. But commodity prices have been surging as well. Favorable macro-economic trends are powering both markets.

The S&P 500 Index is up more than 50% from its March lows. Meanwhile, the CRB Index of commodity prices recently broke above the 280 level making new yearly highs - about a 40% advance from the lows of last year.

Therefore, no matter what America's grim economic data may be saying, the stock market and the commodity markets both agree that some sort of recovery is underway.

I how no opinion about where stock prices are headed next, but I feel fairly confident that commodity prices will continue trending higher over the coming years. That said, many commodity markets have already posted such large gains during the last few months that some investors may be skittish about climbing aboard.

I understand this fear, but investors must remember that commodities are not homogenous. Even though many of them have soared this year, some commodities have advanced very little. Corn is one of the notable laggards...and I think it has some catching up to do.

My recent research travels took me to the West Coast to revisit acquaintances made during the July National Chicken Marketing convention. (Yeah, that's what I do for fun!)

My big takeaway from this chicken confab was that most of the presenters and professionals in attendance believed that $3.00 corn was way too cheap and that corn prices would begin moving higher. I trust these guys. After all, it's their business to know the cost inputs from the egg to the bird on your plate. But their bullish outlook for corn was a minority opinion at the time.

Back in mid-summer, when this convention took place, the corn crop looked likely to make it through the summer months in great shape, with no threats in sight to disrupt high yields. Consequently, corn prices were languishing near multi-year lows.

But as it turns out, the "chicken crowd" was right to believe that corn prices were too cheap. And the corn price charts from last summer confirmed the strong potential for even higher prices. Though my view on trading weighs heavily on technical analysis, I learned long ago not to ignore important fundamental information. At the lowly price of $3.00 a bushel, the upside potential for corn seemed much greater than the downside risk.

That's why I urged the subscribers of my Resource Trader Alert (RTA) to enter a bullish trade on corn. Over at RTA we use options to directly play commodities themselves - options help limit our risks, while still providing ample opportunity to profit.

I recommended a six-month-long option play on corn, designed to benefit from any strong up-move in corn prices. The specific trade I recommended cost just a little more than $1,100 to initiate. I was looking for corn to move to $4.00 a bushel by then end of this year. But as it turned out, we hit that target in late October, which caused the value of the corn trade I recommended to more than double.

That's just how quickly the commodity options can move - a 25% rally in corn prices caused the recommended corn options to double. By using options we were able to maximize our profit potential and substantially limit our risk.

The reality of fundamental trading on things like weather, planting intentions, yields, exports or crop disease is that the information does not flow freely to everyone at the same time. The farmers, seed salesmen and grain elevator operators use their legal inside information in the market before others. Often, price charts reflect this "insider knowledge."

In other words, a price chart can provide an early indication that a market is about move into a bullish mode, even before any broadly disseminated public information would confirm the rising prices. Therefore, when you combine technical analysis with the informed insights of industry insiders, you can shift the odds of success greatly in your favor.

After a brief correction, corn is on the rise again and trading just above $4.00 a bushel. I'm staying with this friendly trend for now.

Regards,

Alan Knuckman
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

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That is, they all believe that government has to manage the economy - in a macro-economic way.

The theory is simple: when private industry and private consumers drop the ball...the government should pick it up and run with it.

And so the feds are out on the field:

At the Treasury, the boys from Government Sachs are all suited up...shooting some hoops with their pals from Wall Street. Got some investments that went bad? Bring 'em over! The Paulson crew has $700 billion to work with. If you're a major bank or financial institution, and you don't mind playing ball with the Paulson team, you could score some real money.

And over at the Fed, Ben Bernanke is hoping to kick a field goal. He's still got 150 basis points to go in this game. Then, the key Fed rate will be zero. He'll use every one of those points, we guess. And he'll continue lending money to whomever will take it. Want to see an ugly bank balance sheet? Just look at the Fed. The bank - a private bank, by the way - is selling off its safe U.S. government securities in order to take on board the kind of 'assets' that smell like a teenager's gym locker.

And that still leaves the "fiscal stimulus." Yes, dear reader, get ready for it. Big spending projects. Paul Krugman is using his new stature to tell politicians what they want to hear most. This is not the time to be timid about spending money. Keynesian economics requires Congress to run big deficits - to make up for the spending that consumers and business have more sense than to do. 'It's the responsible thing for government to do," he will say. 'And don't worry about the deficit. We'll take care of that later. America is such a big, dynamic, flexible economy...we'll figure out how to deal with the deficit after this crisis is over.'

The Washington Post is now talking openly about something that would have seemed impossibly scary and absurd a few years ago - a $1 trillion deficit.

It's coming, dear reader. It's coming.

Yes, the feds are setting a different kind of trap for modern Americans. Watch out for Caesar's money!

Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia

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