Thread: U.S. Treasuries end 2011 as one of year's best investments

U.S. Treasuries end 2011 as one of year's best investments

By Pallavi Gogoi, Associated Press Updated 17m ago

NEW YORK – Investors clamored for Treasuries in 2011, giving the market its best return since 2008, even after the U.S. government lost its sterling AAA credit rating. The turmoil in global markets only seemed to increase demand for Treasuries, which are still seen as the lowest-risk investments anywhere.

Compared to the U.S. stock market, where the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index ended the year flat, Treasuries soared 9.6% in 2011, according to a benchmark index from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. That's the best return since 2008.

Investors flocked to the safety of U.S. Treasuries after being alarmed by worries that the euro, Europe's currency shared among 17 nations, would collapse because of enormous debt loads in many of the countries that use the euro.

MORE: Treasury securities
There are still worries that Greece, among other nations, could default on its debt, which would cause massive losses for large French and German banks that hold Greek bonds. Investors fear such an event could trigger global financial panic.

As the eurozone debt crisis intensified during the year, U.S. debt became the safest place to park cash for large investors.

"The U.S. downgrade was well overshadowed by concerns over eurozone risk," said Kim Rupert, managing director of global fixed income analysis at Action Economics. "After huge fluctuations in gold and other commodities, there aren't any other areas besides Treasuries to put your money and be assured you'll get it back."

Recent debt auctions by the U.S. government were met with record demand. That demand increased even more after the value of European government bonds fell, crushing the balance sheets of European banks. They were lining up with other investors from around the world to buy U.S. debt to shore up their balance sheets.

The intense buying sent the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury down to 1.67% in September, the lowest on record. On Friday, the 10-year note fell 15 cents for every $100 traded and closed out the year at a 1.88% yield.

Both Spain and Italy are scheduled to hold debt auctions in the coming weeks, which will be closely monitored. Both countries have had to pay high yields on new debt they've recently sold. Earlier this week, Italy paid 6.98% on a 10-year bond auction, dangerously close to the 7% threshold at which Greece and Portugal were forced to seek bailouts from their creditors.

That's not to say that 2012 will be a repeat performance for Treasuries. Rupert said the demand for U.S. Treasuries likely will remain strong until Europe convinces investors it is making enough progress toward resolving its debt problems.

"There's a real risk that a country defaults in the first half, which will have a domino effect and Treasury yields will hit fresh all-time lows," Rupert said. "But once that catharsis is over, expect large-scale selling."

But for now, Treasuries are the lowest-risk best bet in town. The 30-year bond yield finished 2011 at 2.89%, after starting the year at 4.5%.

The yield on the two-year note was unchanged at 0.27% while the yield on the three-month T-bill was 0.01%. Its discount wasn't available.

Trading was quiet on the last trading day of 2011. Markets will be closed Monday in observance of New Year's Day, which falls on Sunday.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/...011/52294278/1

Treasuries Return Most Since 2008 as Europe Crisis Fuels Demand

December 31, 2011, 12:22 AM EST
By Daniel Kruger

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries had the biggest annual return since the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 as Europe’s debt turmoil spurred investor demand for refuge even as Standard & Poor’s cut America’s credit rating.

U.S. 10-year note yields ended 2011 within a quarter- percentage point of a record low while data showed the U.S. economy was strengthening. U.S. payrolls increased in December, a report next week is forecast to show. Treasuries were supported by the Federal Reserve, which pledged to hold its benchmark interest rate near zero until mid-2013 and took additional action to try to lower borrowing costs.

“There’s still a lot of fear in the market,” said Anthony Cronin, a trader at Societe Generale SA in New York, one of the 21 primary dealers that trade with the Fed. “If a country like Italy or Spain is unable to fund themselves, will the other countries be able to pick up the slack? Will that cause a major banking crisis?”

The benchmark 10-year note yield closed at 1.88 percent yesterday in New York, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices, its lowest at year-end since at least 1963. It tumbled 142 basis points, or 1.42 percentage points, from Dec. 31, 2010, in the biggest annual decrease since the 181 basis-point drop in 2008. The yield touched 1.67 percent on Sept. 23, a record low.

Thirty-year bond yields dropped 144 basis points, also the most in three years, to 2.89 percent. Two-year note yields fell 35 basis points to 0.24 percent, their lowest level at the end of a year since at least 1977.

Annual Returns

Treasuries returned 9.6 percent in 2011 through Dec. 29, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, beating stocks and commodities. Long bonds gained 35 percent, and 10- year notes rose 17 percent. The MSCI All Country World Index of equities lost 6.9 percent after accounting for reinvested dividends, and the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Total Return Index of commodities declined 1.2 percent.

German bonds also gained 9.6 percent, according to the Merrill Lynch indexes.

Treasuries climbed as Europe’s two-year-old debt crisis persisted through summits and rescue efforts. The turmoil, which led to bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, now threatens Spain and Italy.

U.S. bonds extended gains yesterday as Spain’s government moved to raise taxes and cut spending to tackle a larger-than- forecast budget deficit. The country’s fiscal shortfall this year will reach 8 percent of gross domestic product, spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said at a press conference in Madrid.

‘More Foggy’

Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said economic growth in the 17- nation currency region “isn’t good.”

“This means that in 2012 we have to be prepared for the situation to become more foggy, to say it in a friendly way,” Juncker said yesterday on RTL Luxembourg radio.

Concern Europe’s turmoil is worsening offset reports showing the U.S. recovery is building momentum. Growth in the world’s biggest economy will quicken to 2.1 percent in 2012 from 1.8 percent in 2011, a Bloomberg survey showed.

U.S. jobless-benefit applications over the past month fell to a three-year low, data showed Dec. 29. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said its business barometer was at 62.5 in December, compared with a Bloomberg poll forecast of 61. Readings above 50 signal growth.

Nonfarm Payrolls

Nonfarm payrolls added 150,000 jobs in December, after gaining 120,000 in November, a Bloomberg News survey forecast before the government reports the data on Jan. 6. The unemployment rate was projected at 8.7 percent.

“On its own, rates would be significantly higher in the U.S., but we are not an island unto ourselves,” said Larry Milstein, managing director in New York of government and agency debt trading at R.W. Pressprich & Co., a fixed-income broker and dealer for institutional investors. “The exogenous impact from Europe is clearly keeping our rates much lower than they would be otherwise.”

Treasury 10-year yields will advance to 2.66 percent by the end of 2012, according to a Bloomberg survey with the most recent forecasts given the heaviest weightings.

The government drew record demand at its bond auctions in 2011, even after S&P downgraded the U.S. to AA+ for the first time from the top AAA level. The rating company criticized federal lawmakers for failing to cut spending enough to reduce budget deficits that exceed $1 trillion a year.

Most Since 1992

The Treasury Department attracted $3.04 for each dollar of the $2.135 trillion in notes and bonds sold this year. It was the most since the government began releasing the data in 1992 during the George H. W. Bush administration, and a sign that President Barack Obama may have little difficulty financing a fourth consecutive year of $1 trillion budget deficits.

The Fed completed in June a $600 billion program of buying Treasuries to spur growth. It was the central bank’s second round of asset purchases under quantitative easing.

In October, reacting to an unemployment rate that had been near or above 9 percent since 2009, the Fed began a program to lower borrowing costs by replacing $400 billion of shorter-term assets in its holdings with longer-term debt.

The central bank said yesterday it will buy about $45 billion of Treasuries in January and sell about $44 billion as part of the program, known by traders as Operation Twist after a similar effort in the 1960s.

U.S. government securities rose in December even as Treasuries held in custody at the Fed for foreign central banks and other official investors fell by $68.9 billion, the biggest four-week drop on record, according to Fed data. The slide came as the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six trade partners, rose 2.3 percent this month.

“It’s not unlikely they are repatriating assets to shore up their own economies,” said Ian Lyngen, a government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.

--Editors: Greg Storey, Paul Cox

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Kruger in New York at dkruger1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robert Burgess at bburgess@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...ls-demand.html

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Treasuries Return Most Since 2008 as Europe Crisis Fuels Demand

================================================== =======================

This is all paper money, and the history of the past 150 years proves that world stability cannot be sustained with or by economies based on inflated currency. Pre-WWII Germany and the collapse of the world economies teaches us that even if the United States is miraculously able to make positive income interest on US government bonds, the Domino Effect of world economies will more than erase any monetary gains to be had in investing in the US Treasury.

Even more so than before WWII, especially since the industrial might this country had to fall back on in times of world calamity have essentially been uprooted and relocated to foreign soil by greedy globalist professional politicians who promised us this would never happen, and that all the outourcing of the past three decades would bring us nothing but peace, security, and prosperity.

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MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES

(in Billions of Dollars)

HOLDINGS 1/ AT END OF PERIOD


Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct
Country 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2011 2010 2010 2010
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------

China, Mainland 1134.1 1148.3 1137.0 1173.5 1165.5 1159.8 1152.5 1144.9 1154.1 1154.7 1160.1 1164.1 1175.3
Japan 979.0 956.8 936.6 914.8 911.0 912.4 906.9 907.9 890.3 885.9 882.3 875.9 873.6
United Kingdom 2/ 408.4 421.6 397.2 353.4 347.8 345.1 332.5 324.6 295.7 278.1 270.4 242.5 209.0
Oil Exporters 3/ 226.2 229.9 236.3 234.4 229.7 230.0 221.5 222.3 218.8 215.5 211.9 204.3 207.8
Brazil 209.1 206.2 210.0 210.0 207.1 211.4 206.9 193.5 194.3 197.6 186.1 189.8 183.0
Carib Bnkng Ctrs 4/ 175.2 172.9 161.2 128.7 145.5 152.6 139.8 155.2 169.8 166.9 168.4 158.8 146.3
Taiwan 150.1 149.3 150.3 154.3 153.4 153.4 154.5 156.1 155.9 157.2 155.1 154.4 154.5
Switzerland 131.7 146.1 147.5 108.4 108.0 108.0 106.1 109.7 109.6 107.4 106.8 106.8 107.6
Hong Kong 110.7 109.0 107.9 111.9 118.4 122.0 122.4 122.1 124.6 128.1 134.2 134.9 135.2
Russia 92.1 94.6 97.1 100.7 110.7 115.2 125.4 127.8 130.5 139.3 151.0 167.3 176.3
Canada 81.8 84.8 82.6 83.5 81.4 87.8 85.0 90.3 90.0 84.3 75.3 75.6 66.1
Luxembourg 72.3 73.7 62.0 61.4 69.0 68.1 78.4 81.1 81.0 83.0 86.4 81.9 78.5
Singapore 63.7 63.5 58.3 63.0 61.7 57.5 60.3 55.7 66.7 57.8 72.9 62.2 66.4
Germany 60.9 58.9 60.2 61.2 62.0 61.2 61.3 59.8 58.3 61.1 60.5 58.6 58.2
Thailand 55.9 55.0 54.5 65.2 62.6 59.8 60.7 57.1 57.6 56.5 52.0 52.2 52.7
France 48.0 43.9 29.0 22.5 22.4 23.6 20.3 17.7 30.2 30.2 15.0 20.1 23.5
Turkey 39.7 39.9 39.2 41.9 41.9 39.3 37.9 36.2 34.3 32.9 28.9 29.1 27.8
Ireland 37.9 34.0 33.6 34.3 36.1 33.5 40.2 44.0 42.0 44.4 45.8 50.0 48.9
Korea, South 37.8 33.6 32.4 29.4 29.9 32.5 30.8 32.5 31.2 31.9 36.2 39.8 39.4
Belgium 36.1 35.8 31.8 31.3 33.6 31.4 31.6 32.2 32.0 32.1 33.2 33.4 33.4
India 35.5 36.5 37.7 37.9 38.9 41.0 42.1 39.8 40.3 40.6 40.5 39.7 40.1
Mexico 26.8 27.1 28.0 29.1 29.2 27.7 26.7 28.1 34.6 34.4 33.6 32.6 34.8
Poland 26.1 27.1 28.7 29.3 28.5 27.9 27.4 28.4 27.3 26.3 25.5 27.2 28.8
Philippines 25.5 25.5 25.1 25.1 22.7 23.8 24.1 23.4 22.7 22.8 20.1 19.2 18.5
Italy 24.2 24.4 23.7 24.3 23.7 25.4 24.8 24.2 24.3 24.6 23.7 23.6 23.7
Netherlands 22.5 23.4 22.6 23.2 23.5 23.7 23.6 25.1 24.9 25.4 22.7 22.1 22.0
Colombia 21.7 21.3 21.0 20.0 20.1 19.9 19.8 20.2 20.1 19.8 20.2 20.3 16.7
Sweden 21.5 21.6 21.3 21.3 21.3 20.9 21.4 21.3 17.7 17.0 16.8 15.2 16.1
Chile 20.7 18.8 19.4 18.0 18.4 18.9 18.6 16.7 16.0 15.0 13.9 13.4 13.4
Norway 19.9 22.6 22.0 17.6 20.4 21.1 21.1 21.4 20.8 19.4 19.6 19.0 18.0
Australia 14.7 13.4 11.6 13.1 13.9 12.3 13.1 10.3 12.6 14.7 14.9 14.9 15.7
Israel 14.7 15.7 18.3 17.2 18.3 19.1 19.3 18.9 19.8 19.9 20.6 20.5 17.9
Malaysia 14.4 13.7 13.4 13.3 12.0 12.7 12.2 11.2 11.3 11.3 11.5 11.7 11.6
All Other 217.3 211.5 214.9 210.9 212.1 215.8 218.7 216.3 212.7 215.4 219.2 230.5 232.1
Grand Total 4656.3 4660.2 4572.6 4484.3 4500.8 4514.8 4487.9 4476.1 4472.0 4451.4 4435.6 4411.4 4373.1

Of which:
For. Official 3239.8 3261.8 3245.0 3237.6 3239.2 3240.9 3217.8 3182.9 3193.0 3184.0 3189.3 3212.4 3227.9
Treasury Bills 374.6 387.3 409.2 392.3 407.7 423.2 421.7 414.9 432.4 438.9 462.3 499.2 531.3
T-Bonds & Notes 2865.2 2874.5 2835.7 2845.3 2831.4 2817.7 2796.1 2768.0 2760.6 2745.1 2727.0 2713.2 2696.6

Department of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Board
December 15, 2011

1/ Estimated foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury marketable and non-marketable bills, bonds, and notes
reported under the Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting system are based on annual
Surveys of Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities and on monthly data.
2/ United Kingdom includes Channel Islands and Isle of Man.
3/ Oil exporters include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.
4/ Caribbean Banking Centers include Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles and Panama.
Beginning with new series for June 2006, also includes British Virgin Islands.

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...uments/mfh.txt

The TRUTH About Who Really Owns All Of America's Debt

Vincent Trivett|Jul. 20, 2011, 1:50 PM|1,072,765|58

If you ever try comparing the debt situation in the US and Japan, someone will invariably say: Well, Japan can afford a lot more debt because it's all domesticly owned, whereas US debt is owned by the Chinese.

It turns out this isn't really true, though unfortunately this destructive myth continues to dominate political/economic debates.

Yes, China holds a lot, but they're not dominant, and when you add it up, most debt is actually domestically held, just like in Japan.


Hong Kong

Image: Wikipedia
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $121.9 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 0.9%

Source: US Treasury


Caribbean Banking Centers

Image: Andres Nordgreen Fierro
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $148.3 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 1%

The Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles and Panama, and British Virgin Islands all function as offshore financial centers. Of course, they invest in Treasury Securities as well.

Source: US Treasury


Taiwan

Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $153.4 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 1.1%

Source: US Treasury


Brazil

Image: By kaysha on flickr
Total Holdings of Treasuries: $211.4 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 1.5%


Source: US Treasury


Oil Exporting Countries

Total holdings of Treasuries: $229.8 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 1.6%

Oil exporters include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.

Source: US Treasury


Mutual Funds

Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $300.5 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 2%


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


Commercial Banks

Image: Wikimedia
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $301.8 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 2.1%


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


State, Local, and Federal Retirement Funds

Image: via The Shores at Wesley Manor
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $320.9 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 2.2%


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


Money Market Mutual Funds

Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $337.7 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 2.4%


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


United Kingdom

Total Holdings of Treasuries: $346.5 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 2.4%

Source: US Treasury


Private Pension Funds

Image: Flickr Vertigogen
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $504.7 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 3.5%


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


State and Local Governments

Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $506.1 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 3.5%

Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


Japan

Image: AP
Total Holdings of Treasuries: $912.4 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 6.4%


Source: US Treasury


US Households

Image: Courtesy of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate
Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $959.4 billion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 6.6%

The 'Household Sector' does include hedge funds, by the way.

Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts Note: Latest Statistics are as of March 2011


China

Image: AP
Total Holdings of Treasuries: $1.16 trillion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 8%

Source: US Treasury


The Federal Reserve

Image: commons.wikimedia.org
The Treasury owes the Fed $1.63 trillion in Treasuries, much of which were bought for the Quantitative Easing programs.

That's 11.3% of US debt, much more than China.

Source: Federal Reserve


Social Security Trust Fund

Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $2.67 trillion

Percent of US Debt that they own: 19%

The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds invest exclusively in special issue bonds that are only available to the Social Security trust fund. These are not publicly traded securities, but they still constitute a huge amount of debt.

Source: Social Security Administration

In all, the Treasury owes foreigners and foreign governments $4.514 trillion dollars

But Americans own most of their own country's $14,342,909,569,328.74 of debt.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/who-o...#ixzz1i8PuiXyR

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...uments/mfh.txt

U.S. Treasuries Surged on Safe-Haven Demand to Best Performance Since 1995

By Emily Knapp
December 27 2011Share1inShare.2Email This

Strong demand for U.S. government bonds in 2011 pushed longer-maturity Treasuries to their best performance since 1995.

Hot Feature: China Cracks Down on Gold Exchanges

The Treasury Department attracted $3.04 for each dollar of the $2.135 trillion in notes and bonds sold this year — the most since the government began releasing such data in 1992 under the George H. W. Bush administration.

In 2011, the U.S. drew an all-time high bid-to-cover ratio of 9.07 for $30 billion of four-week bills auctioned on December 20, even though they pay zero percent interest.

Treasuries due in 10 years or more returned 25.6 percent this year as the European debt crisis and slowing global growth drove investors to the safety of U.S. assets, helping to keep down borrowing costs and making it cheaper as a percentage of gross domestic product to finance record deficits than it was when the nation last had budget surpluses.

The last time longer-maturity Treasuries were returning as much was in 1995, when they rallied 30.7 percent in one year.

The news means that President Barack Obama is unlikely to have much difficulty financing a fourth consecutive year of $1 trillion budget deficits.

“We have a significantly shrinking supply of risk-free assets in the world and U.S. Treasuries are one of the few left,” said Ira Jersey, an interest-rate strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG in New York, one of 21 primary dealers required to bid at the auctions.

U.S. Treasuries in general returned 8.9 percent this year, while global sovereign debt and mortgage-backed securities rose 5.8 percent and corporate bonds climbed 4.3 percent.

The dollar has been gaining against the world’s major currencies, appreciating 1.2 percent so far this year, as measured by the IntercontinentalExchange Inc.’s Dollar Index. The gauge rose 1.5 percent in 2010.

While yields on 10-year notes rose 18 basis points last week to 2.02 percent, they were down from 3.3 percent at the end of 2010. The comparatively lower yields mean that interest expense accounted for only 3 percent of the U.S. economy in fiscal 2011 ended September 30, down from 4 percent in 1999. When the U.S. ran budget surpluses between 1998 and 2001 the bid-to-cover ratio was 2.26.

“Most people thought if the U.S. was downgraded it would lead to higher rates. Most people argued that increasing deficits would be more difficult to finance,” but the opposite has been the case, said John Fath, a principal at the investment firm BTG Pactual in New York who manages $2.5 billion of bonds.

Ten-year yields have steadily declined since 1981, when the yield on benchmark for everything from corporate bonds to mortgages exceeded 15 percent. In January 1993, when the elder Bush’s presidency came to an end, they stood at 6.57 percent, down from 9.54 percent in early 1989 when he took office as the Federal Reserve cut its target rate for overnight loans between banks. Yields have averaged 4.92 percent since former President Bill Clinton took office in 1993.

The financial crisis boosted investor demand for Treasuries as the value of higher risk assets such as stocks and corporate bonds plummeted. The Fed has kept its target rate in range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008, and has pledged to keep it there until mid-2013.

Bid-to-cover ratios at Treasury auctions averaged $2.99 last year, up from $2.50 in 2009 and $2.23 in 2008. Toward the end of this year, demand accelerated, with investors bidding $3.20 per dollar of securities sold in November and December amid concern over the health of the European economy.

The U.S. Treasury market has benefited from being one of the few remaining refuges for investors even as government borrowing surpassed $15 trillion. The Japanese yen is the only major currency to have outperformed the U.S. dollar this year, rising 4.1 percent.

U.S. government debt has gained 39 percent since the start of 2007, though budget deficits have totaled $4 trillion in the three fiscal years from October 2008 through September 2011. The budget shortfall may narrow from $1.3 trillion this year to $1.1 trillion in fiscal 2012, according to a survey of bond dealers in the minutes of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee’s November 2 meeting.

As the nation approaches the debt limit set by law, the Obama administration will ask Congress to increase federal borrowing authority by $1.2 trillion, according to a Treasury Department official. The White House will send the request to Congress on December 30, the day the national debt is projected to rise to within $100 billion of the $15.194 trillion limit.

It is important that demand keeps up, as about 45 percent of the $7.76 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes and bonds will need to be refinanced by the end of 2014.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Emily Knapp at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com

http://ewallstreeter.com/u-s-treasur...ce-since-6470/

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