Shorting Treasuries

urrterrible · Dec 28, 2008

I never even thought of this but I ran across it in a thread on the yahoo message board for TBT.

With treasuries having such low interest rates right now and hence the price of the t-note increased. Why not short the T-notes?

I have read that these notes could be at these rates for a while so things might not change, but if you think they have to get off this zero coupon rates then shorting these might be good.

I have a couple questions though:
If you buy puts on the ZB futures(30 year treasuries) are you limited in the amount of % you can make, meaning that interest rates can only climb so fast therefor your returns can only climb so fast???

And if someone has good knowledge of these quotes or where to find the best quotes that would help. I see some are trading at 140 and then there is a dash and I do not know what that shit means

Best wishes,

UT

cvds16 · Dec 28, 2008

you better read up on this because it seems you have no idea how these things work. It doesn't work the way you describe it. If rates stay low you will lose a bundle.

urrterrible · Dec 28, 2008

Quote from urrterrible:

I have read that these notes could be at these rates for a while so things might not change, but if you think they have to get off this zero coupon rates then shorting these might be good.

Did you read my post at all???

Why would I short treasuries if I thought the rates were going to stay low, lol.

cvds16 · Dec 28, 2008

do you understand any of this ? apparently not. I don't even know where to get started. Read something decent on bond futures ...

cvds16 · Dec 28, 2008

I got a good book on this subject here somewhere, problem is finding it ...
If it were so simple as to short the T-notes that would be a free option in itself, it doesn't work that way.

urrterrible · Dec 28, 2008

Quote from cvds16:

If rates stay low you will lose a bundle.

If you pay attention to my post I mentioned that shorting would only be the way to go if rates come off of these lows. I mentioned that rates may be low for a while.

If you think I am a misguided and uniformed just let me be, please. But if you have positive and meaningful information to share to this thread that would be great.