Quote from Covertibility:
You think the BoJ cares what the yield on the bonds its buying to keep their currency from floating higher against the dollar? CB's don't care about yields.
Buffet is sitting in cash? He was said to be buying foreign bonds a few years ago. He was buying US zero's and bonds back in the late 90's. He's not sitting on cash.
Didn't Bill Gross say the Dow should be at 5000 a few years ago? Like anyone should care what that guy has to say.
1. BOJ: Its balance sheet is currently 30% of Japan's GDP and is sitting on $100bn losses. If US dollar depreciates more, if US inflates away a large part of the debt (which I think it's certain), then the Japanese taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
2. Buffet: Please do your homework before hitting the reply key. Go to BRK homepage and read his report for 3Q04 (actually nothing has changed much in >1yr of quarterly reports) Buffet is sitting on cash (other than his long time stock positions in CocaCola, Gilette etc), and has hedged most of his US dollar exposure. He thinks the US will be tempted to inflate away the debt (see his 10-Jan-2005 interview in Forbes).
I won[t even go into the repercussions of the dynamic hedges by GSEs or the unwind of the carry trade.
Anyway, the broad picture is aimed at "value investors". In my opinion, buying long bonds in this environment is no different than the speculator who buys TZOO. Because you know it's very possible that the US long bond will lose 30% of its value within weeks. It can happen today, next month or next year. Or perhaps never.