Ep 36: Refresher: We are Paying Attention to Bonds Again

The bond market has always been relevant, but it hasn't mattered as much since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) - that's when the housing market collapsed in 2008. When we have a financial crisis, there is a fiscal policy response and monetary policy response to stimulate the economy. Right now we are in restrictive fed territory, they have raised rates to levels not seen since the GFC. Now the big market question is: when will they lower rates? If they do it too soon, it will reignite inflation, too late, it will tip us into a recession. The Fed's action affect the front end of the curve... when they lower and raise rates. WHICH AFFECTS YOU. (and that HYSA). You need to understand the yield curve and what de-inversion would mean.

Is The Fed going to tip us into a recession? What does that even mean? We've been seeing your questions around this and more after our recent episodes on the FOMC meetings.

Let's revisit how the yield curve works so we can all understand how the stock market and bond market is affected by The Fed's actions and what an inverted yield curve means for your money.

*This episode was recorded back in November 2023, so some things mentioned are related to that month, but overall still relevant to what's happening now.*

Episode Equity

Jessie's Questions

Q: What triggers a recession according to the Fed's actions?
A: The Fed's actions, such as adjusting interest rates, can tip the economy into a recession.
Q: How do Fed's actions impact the yield curve?
A: The Fed's actions affect the front end of the yield curve, influencing short-term interest rates and potentially the overall shape of the yield curve.
Q: What is the significance of treasury securities in the context of the US economy?
A: Treasury securities, including T-bills, notes, and bonds, are the means by which the US finances its debt. They vary in maturity and are crucial for understanding the country's financial health and investment opportunities.
Q: How does the supply and demand of treasury securities affect their yields?
A: The supply and demand dynamics in the market can cause the yields of treasury securities to fluctuate. An increase in supply or a decrease in demand can raise yields, while a decrease in supply or an increase in demand can lower them.
Q: What is the relationship between bond prices and yields?
A: Bond prices and yields have an inverse relationship. When bond prices go up, yields go down, and vice versa.
Q: What is the Taylor rule and why has it become relevant again?
A: The Taylor rule is a guideline for setting interest rates based on economic conditions, including inflation and economic output. It has become relevant again due to increased attention to bonds and monetary policy.
Q: How does the yield curve predict economic activity?
A: The shape of the yield curve is a predictor of economic activity. A normal, upward-sloping yield curve indicates expected economic growth, while an inverted yield curve, where short-term rates are higher than long-term rates, suggests a potential recession.
Q: Why are treasury securities considered risk-free investments?
A: Treasury securities are considered risk-free because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, which has a strong track record of repaying its debt.
Q: What role does the bond market play in the overall financial market?
A: The bond market, where treasury securities and other bonds are traded, provides an alternative to the stock market for investors looking for safer investments. It influences the stock market by affecting interest rates and investor sentiment.
Q: How does the issuance of treasury securities relate to the US government's debt ceiling?
A: The issuance of treasury securities is a way for the US government to finance its debt. When the debt ceiling is raised, it allows the government to issue more securities to fund its operations and obligations.
Q: What is the impact of a treasury buyback program on the market?
A: A treasury buyback program, where the government repurchases its own securities before maturity, can be a positive sign for the market, indicating a reduction in supply and potentially leading to lower interest rates.
Q: How does the federal funds rate influence short-term interest rates?
A: The federal funds rate, set by the Federal Reserve, serves as the benchmark for short-term interest rates. Changes in the federal funds rate directly impact other short-term rates, affecting borrowing costs and economic activity.
Q: Why might investors choose to invest in the bond market over the stock market?
A: Investors might choose the bond market over the stock market for safer, risk-free returns, especially when bond yields are attractive compared to the potential risks and volatility of the stock market.
Q: How do credit ratings affect the perception of treasury securities?
A: Credit ratings provide an assessment of the creditworthiness of the issuer, in this case, the US government. A high credit rating suggests that treasury securities are a reliable, low-risk investment.
Q: What is the importance of understanding the bond market for self-directed investors?
A: Understanding the bond market is crucial for self-directed investors as it affects interest rates, the economy, and the stock market. Knowledge of bonds can help investors make informed decisions and diversify their portfolios.

Episode Transcript

Jess: You're listening to Market Make Her, the self-directed investing education podcast that breaks down the stock market from her perspective.

Jessie: Just Jess and Skip here today.

Jess: Jessie Dadaoui, my co-host, is out sick.

Jessie: But it is her birthday, so everyone wish her happy birthday.

Jess: I'm going to do my best to not use any Taylor Swift analogies.

Jessie: Just for you, Jessie.

Jess: Now, we've had a lot of questions about the Fed.

Jessie: Is the Fed going to tip us into a recession? What does it mean when the Fed tips us into a recession? What are the biggest impacts that we see on the stock market? What's happening with our high yield savings accounts? Are the Fed going to cut rates? When they do, what happens? It all comes down to the yield curve and treasury supply.

Jess: I personally haven't been watching the bond market this closely since the great financial crisis.

Jessie: And that's a large consensus across the market.

Jess: Something called the Taylor rule has come back.

Jessie: That is not a Taylor Swift analogy.

Jess: It's definitely an episode I foresee in our future.

Jessie: Something that hasn't been applicable until we're paying more attention to bonds.

Jess: Which means to answer these questions, what's going to happen to my high yield savings account? What does it all mean? We have to understand how the treasury works, the treasury supply and demand, the function of that, and the yield curve.

Jessie: Because remember, the Fed's actions affect the front end of the yield curve.

Jess: The Fed's actions are what tip us into a recession.

Jessie: And the yield curve is comprised of treasuries.

Jess: And treasuries is the way that we as a country finance our debt.

Jessie: And we have a huge deficit.

Jess: We didn't receive as much tax revenue as anticipated, which means we need to finance more.

Jessie: Now the treasury did announce that they're going to have a buyback program, kind of like you would pay off your auto loan or a line of credit early.

Jess: That's certainly a good sign.

Jessie: So keep that in mind because for today, because it's oh so relevant to the market, want to make sure that you fully understand how the yield curve works.

Jess: Because if the Fed cuts interest rates, this is the biggest impact.

Jessie: In addition to what happens with our government's debt.

Jess: Without further ado, who is the treasury and what do they do? The treasury, it's like the finance department of the US government.

Jessie: You know how we talked about the debt ceiling and how we raised it for the 100th time, literally.

Jess: This is the way that they finance that debt.

Jessie: When we say, okay, you can have more debt, how do you get it? The treasury is the finance department and they basically, in a very interesting analogy way, go get more credit cards for the government to spend.

Jess: And how do they do that? It's the type of securities that they issue.

Jessie: We call them treasury securities, but they are treasury bonds.

Jess: They are called T-bills, treasury bills, and treasury notes.

Jessie: The names just have varying security maturities, meaning some are issued for like six months, others for three months, two years, 10 years, 30 years.

Jess: Those are just the varying lengths of maturity.

Jessie: Your credit card expires at this date, but you can't get a new one.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: What are the different lengths of time? Is it the same as how a CD works or is this different? In a way, there is this set amount of value and you expect to get interest on that set amount of value.

Jess: But now you're introducing trading into it, which means that set amount of value, like if you get a CD for $10,000, you expect to get 5%.

Jessie: That $10,000 could be traded on the secondary market through supply and demand.

Jess: And so if there's more buyers, there's a lot of demand that may make the price go up.

Jessie: So it might be like $10,500.

Jess: That means the yield is going to adjust because you're getting 5% on the principal amount of $10,000.

Jessie: If you bought that for $10,500, you're not really getting 5%.

Jess: Is the yield the same thing as an interest rate and like what's a coupon? The coupon is like the interest rate that you'd get on the CD.

Jessie: It's the fixed amount of interest that's issued with the debt, but the yield, it can change on the market through supply and demand.

Jess: We're basically buying off government debt.

Jessie: They're taking out credit cards from us.

Jess: We're giving them money and then they're going to promise some sort of interest back in return over however long of the time is allocated for that specific debt we're buying.

Jessie: Exactly.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: So we're issuing debt.

Jess: We're the public buying debt.

Jessie: That's why they have credit ratings.

Jess: Can they pay us back that debt? That makes sense now.

Jessie: If there's credit rating for the US government, it's still pretty high.

Jess: So that means it's reliable to buy treasury bonds or their debt from right now because they pay their debts back.

Jessie: Is that what that's saying? Yeah.

Jess: So this is such an important part and you're doing that thing where these aren't pre-planted questions and you're just asking the right ones.

Jessie: I love it.

Jess: This is considered risk-free money, meaning the government always pays their debt.

Jessie: A Lannister always pays their debt.

Jess: The US government are the Lannisters.

Jessie: That's a terrible analogy.

Jess: So far the US government has always paid their debts back and that's why they have a pretty good credit rating.

Jessie: That's why those kinds of products are considered a safer investment to buy, right? Or like less risky.

Jess: Yes.

Jessie: So that's considered risk-free would be the term.

Jess: Risk-free I'm going to get 5%.

Jessie: So why would I invest in the stock market? That's the comparison there, which we need to break down further, but there's some other things that we have to explain first.

Jess: So I should talk more about short-term rates versus long-term rates and how that goes into the yield curve.

Jessie: Okay.

Jess: What are those short-term rates versus the long-term rates? Everything has a benchmark, right? Shorter term rates, their benchmark is the federal funds rate, which is set by the Fed, the FOMC.

Jessie: Shorter term rates are more by market mechanics and forces like supply and demand.

Jess: The rates are supposed to compensate you for purchasing power.

Jessie: The Fed sets the federal funds rate.

Jess: That's going to be your short-term rates benchmark.

Jessie: That's six months.

Jess: Now you go to two years, 10 years, and then you go to 30 years.

Jessie: As you have more longer dated maturity, you should be compensated for that.

Jess: As in you should get more yield, more interest.

Jessie: You should get more money for your money because you are locking in your funds for a much longer.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: They're getting to use your money for much longer, right? Exactly.

Jess: And you should be compensated for that.

Jessie: The short-term rates are highly affected by what the Fed does.

Jess: So if the Fed raises interest rates, this is called duration risk and interest rate risk.

Jessie: If the shorter dated rate starts raising up, those longer dated bonds, they're going to go down.

Jess: The short-term rates are higher than those previous long-term rates.

Jessie: Then what happens? When that happens, that's what creates the inverted yield curve.

Jess: Oh, so it's an inverted yield curve.

Jessie: So the long-term securities should be making people a lot more like return, more money on their money.

Jess: But now the short-term ones are even higher.

Jessie: So that inverts the yield curve.

Jess: It should be, you would think it would be like a, so instead of it being like a upward slope, it's literally a downward slope.

Jessie: Is that the difference? That's right.

Jess: And the slope is what's really important.

Jessie: And this is how it's a crystal ball.

Jess: And remember, it's market mechanics and market forces that adjust the longer term, longer term yields.

Jessie: If the Fed funds rate is too low and it was 0% for like 10 years, right, or close to zero since the great financial crisis, that means expectations of future inflation could rise.

Jess: If it rises, then like the following effects is longer term rates.

Jessie: They're going to go up and they're going to compensate for the loss because of the decline in purchasing power.

Jess: The reason why we invest in the stock market is you have your cash sitting in a checking account and we have 2% inflation year over year.

Jessie: If your cash is just sitting there, it's losing its value over time.

Jess: So an expectation that's at a, that balance place of 2% year over year, which is the Fed's target is a good thing because that means that the economy is growing.

Jessie: Consumers are strong.

Jess: That's normal growth.

Jessie: The Fed doesn't want too much growth, but they don't want too little growth.

Jess: It's literally this balance.

Jessie: And you can see that growth expectation into the bond market.

Jess: So the sloping upwards yield curve means that growth is expected, like literally through each maturity date.

Jessie: And that's good.

Jess: When it's inverted, that means they expect to slow down in the U.S.

Jessie: economy.

Jess: We call it inverted on the short end.

Jessie: So this is where all the terminology is like, you'll say short end, long end of the curve.

Jess: Short end means shorter dated securities.

Jessie: So a normal yield curve is supposed to slope upward for the longer dated securities have higher yields.

Jess: And you're saying the inverted curve is when the shorter term securities have higher yields.

Jessie: So it was inverted and now it's de-inverting.

Jess: So it's going back to its normal yield curve? Yes.

Jessie: But you would think that a dis-inverting yield curve means that there's expectations of economic growth, normal economic growth.

Jess: So we should be happy about that.

Jessie: You want it to be dis-inverting for that reason, not because, oh, they expect the Fed to have rates higher for longer or it's an insight to direction, but you have to put all these other things together.

Jess: This is my personal opinion, is the Fed did have an announcement yesterday and they kept rates exactly where they were.

Jessie: For the Q&A, he even said, it does not appear that an expectation of near term policy rates is affecting longer duration bonds.

Jess: We say that the bond market is doing the Fed's job for them.

Jessie: And that's because if the bond market is suddenly going up in yields, that's when mortgages hit 8%.

Jess: That's when you start feeling it.

Jessie: And so the Fed doesn't have to raise interest rates because the market did it for them.

Jess: And the market did it because of supply and demand? Because of supply and demand and treasury issuance.

Jessie: Every quarter they announce how many treasury securities that they're going to issue for what duration.

Jess: Duration just means their maturity dates.

Jessie: They announced literally last quarter $160 billion.

Jess: That would be for this quarter.

Jessie: That's a ton of money.

Jess: It's the way that they're funding their debt.

Jessie: That's a high amount.

Jess: Huge amount.

Jessie: Is that because we're in a lot of debt? It is.

Jess: Well, we raised the debt ceiling.

Jessie: We got to go get the money.

Jess: So this is how they go get the money.

Jessie: And it was $160 billion.

Jess: That's a lot of supply.

Jessie: It's a supply influx.

Jess: And when there is a supply influx, and remember the market is forward looking, so they had no idea how many more.

Jessie: What was the treasury going to do this quarter? Are they going to issue another $160 billion? How much supply is going to be there? And if there's a lot of supply, that means that yields are going to rise.

Jess: It's that love triangle that us, the investor, have with the fixed income market or the treasury market in this case, and the stock market, it's, hey, this is a good yield right now.

Jessie: Come buy me, please.

Jess: Wait, so there's a stock market.

Jessie: Is there also a bond market? There is.

Jess: So the love triangle is between us, the self-directed investor, and then the stock market and the bond market.

Jessie: And the bond market's over here being like, look, I know the stock market is sexy and enticing and exciting, but look at us, the bond market's starting to get pretty hot too.

Jess: So maybe you want to come over here, hang out with us a little bit, buy some of us.

Jessie: It's risk-free rate of return.

Jess: So you have to determine if I can invest my assets, get this super high interest rate, is that worth the risk of the stock market? Because you're looking at risk versus reward.

Jessie: With the stock market, it's a bigger roller coaster.

Jess: This is the one in Disneyland that's been there forever.

Jessie: It's a small world after all.

Jess: You know that there's no risk of you going on that.

Jessie: The dolls are a little bit scary.

Jess: It's not a huge drop or a huge anything.

Jessie: It's very steady for the most part.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: You feel confident taking a baby on there.

Jess: It's going to be fine.

Jessie: But you wouldn't on a roller coaster.

Jess: That's quite dangerous.

Jessie: And that's because of the risk that's involved with it.

Jess: So you have to make sure that you're compensated for risk.

Jessie: Still less risky or still no risk, but you're getting compensated better than usual.

Jess: Is there ever like, I guess the scenario where it wouldn't be risk-free if the government falls or something? We'd have some bigger problems, but that's why you look at Fitch and Moody's and S&P to tell us the credit rating, the credit score of the government.

Jessie: They do pay their debts.

Jess: They pay their debt.

Jessie: If you can get more yields, that's risk-free.

Jess: People will sell out of stocks, so bye-bye stocks, that sends the stock market down, and then they move over to this market.

Jessie: Oh, bond prices and yields have an inverse relationship.

Jess: We can do the math.

Jessie: I think once you do the math on that, which is, I know, no fun, but it makes sense.

Jess: So say you've got something that's $1,000, it's a note of some sort.

Jessie: So treasury security, that's its face value.

Jess: That's what it's called, is $1,000 is the face value.

Jessie: So you have to buy it for it.

Jess: Right.

Jessie: It's not an IPO.

Jess: It's its initial auction.

Jessie: Same type of concept, but it gets a yield of 3%.

Jess: So it's auctioned off at a yield of 3%.

Jessie: When market mechanics come in and say that dropped to like $975, the yield's going to be 3.3%.

Jess: So the yield's going to go up because you're still getting 3% on $1,000, but you paid $975.

Jessie: It basically went on sale.

Jess: So you're getting the interest on the $1,000 number or the $975 number? You're getting the interest on the $1,000 number.

Jessie: So that's how you're getting extra.

Jess: That's happening right now? That happens all the time.

Jessie: That's market mechanics.

Jess: So that's supply and demand, and that's how the yields change, because the inverse happens.

Jessie: So if it were to go up to $1,025, then that's a decline of like 2.7%.

Jess: So now your yield is 2.7%, not 3%.

Jessie: You have a lower yield because you paid more.

Jess: As a self-directed investor, what am I looking for if I'm looking into buying these types of fixed income securities? What are the words or what are the things that I'm looking for? So this is where ETFs make the market really accessible.

Jessie: You can easily invest in this via an ETF.

Jess: When you do that, you just pull the screener and you select category fixed income or category treasuries.

Jessie: That's it.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: Stay with us.

Jess: We'll be right back.

Jessie: Ready to plug into the future? Join myself, Sean Leahy.

Jess: And me, Andrew Maynard.

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Jess: Subscribe to Modem Futura wherever you get your podcasts.

Jessie: We'll see you there.

Jess: See you then.

Jessie: Is that ETF automatically selling off like the, I mean, guess like things expire too.

Jess: So when the short bond expires, you get that extra income in your little basket and then that can keep going into other things depending on how you have it set up, right? Yeah.

Jessie: But the ETF would do that for you.

Jess: It's, it's, you got a little fund manager, literally have a fund manager.

Jessie: It's not little.

Jess: It's there.

Jessie: Regular human.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: That is managing that.

Jess: And if it's all in the prospectus, but they'll tell you the purpose of it.

Jessie: These are income securities, like literally fixed income.

Jess: You get a fixed amount of income.

Jessie: It's in the name.

Jess: It's in the name.

Jessie: Back to what happened.

Jess: This is why things change.

Jessie: So there was a big supply.

Jess: Yields went up.

Jessie: Yields go up.

Jess: That's a more attractive place.

Jessie: You're going to sell out of equities, at least maybe not the average investor is selling directly out of equities, but they might be selling out of equities into exposure with ETFs.

Jess: That could happen.

Jessie: And definitely hedge funds and big institutional investors are selling out of equities and getting that risk-free return while it's high.

Jess: That moment has passed.

Jessie: It's very important to know might still be there for the two years, but not the longer dated.

Jess: I want to make that abundantly clear.

Jessie: Don't go out and buy a bunch of longer dated maturities right now, but you might be able to lock in some good ones on the two years.

Jess: I'm okay saying that that is not financial advice.

Jessie: I am not a financial advisor.

Jess: Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.

Jessie: Yields were so attractive and I was like, hey, come get me.

Jess: Everybody got out of the stocks.

Jessie: That was last quarter's announcement that Yellen, the treasury secretary, who by the way used to be a Fed speaker like Papa Powell, the one before him actually.

Jess: So very, very interesting to know.

Jessie: Now we're fast forward to this quarter.

Jess: We're still got to get that supply of 160 billion.

Jessie: We know about that.

Jess: The market's forward looking.

Jessie: But she says, hey, we're going to issue more supply, but we're going to increase it only by 10 billion this time.

Jess: It's still a lot of supply, like that's super heavy in comparison, but their rate of change, like 160 billion to 10 billion slowed from quarter to quarter.

Jessie: I'm imagining what everything looks like.

Jess: That is a lot of big dip, I guess, in supply.

Jessie: So now it's okay.

Jess: I've locked in my best yield possible over here.

Jessie: Time to get back into growth.

Jess: Stock market rallies.

Jessie: Very important, small stock market update.

Jess: We've been in earnings season.

Jessie: I know we're going to do a stock market update probably next episode.

Jess: We've had some weird anomalies happen within the market.

Jessie: There'd be some really good earnings and the market did not care.

Jess: It did not move higher.

Jessie: It just punished it.

Jess: And it's because of the selloffs and the availability of yield over in the bond market.

Jessie: The market can finally focus on what matters, which is earnings.

Jess: There is growth and that is doing well.

Jessie: And that's why it released duration overhang.

Jess: The announcement of there being less supply of income securities from the U.S.

Jessie: being issued made people switch back over to their long-term growth goals in the stock market.

Jess: So they kind of put a halt on their bond buying and now they're looking back at their stocks again.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: Like the U.S.

Jessie: still has their debt and they still need to sell these things to get the money they need for their debts, right? How are we able to track the bond market? What are the indices with the bond market? Normally when you are logging on to Fidelity or wherever, they're going to have yields listed.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: So you'll see 10-year, you'll see 30-year, you'll see 2-year, you'll see 6-month.

Jess: That's a way you can watch it.

Jessie: If you hear the term inverted yield curve or yield curve, sometimes there's a spread between the 10 and the 2-year, like the difference of the two.

Jess: I think there was a comment on that post where we talked about it and he's like, what if that flips negative or what happens if it flips positive? And so those are ways I think would take a whole episode to explain that process.

Jessie: Okay.

Jess: It can tell us how investors feel about economic growth.

Jessie: That's what the bond market can tell us.

Jess: You said it really great last episode, the market's so fragile.

Jessie: It is fragile, but there's a lot of moving pieces to keep it there.

Jess: So if one thing kind of falls out, they all kind of move together because Fed policy is going to impact this market.

Jessie: This market's going to impact the consumer directly.

Jess: When you deposit your money into a bank, they're going to take your funds and they're going to lend it out a lot, but they're going to physically take your funds and they're going to invest it in these type of securities.

Jessie: And that's why these are tied to usually loan rates.

Jess: Right.

Jessie: That makes sense.

Jess: That's all coming together.

Jessie: How are we using all this to tell the future, to foretell the future? If it is a normal yield curve, great.

Jess: The economy is expected to grow over time.

Jessie: If it's steepening, that might be a little too fast, but that also means that inflation might be a little high in the short run.

Jess: That could be good for stocks, but then bad if whatever the Fed does.

Jessie: If it's inverted, not 100% of the time, but a lot of the time, that indicates a recession is coming.

Jess: It was inverted.

Jessie: It's de-inverting.

Jess: The yield curve is your forecasting, your crystal ball of economic growth.

Jessie: Your GDP and economic data is the results.

Jess: And then that should be reflected on earnings because if there's growth in the economy, people should be spending more.

Jessie: Stocks should be going up because they're making more.

Jess: All related.

Jessie: Put it all together.

Jess: Side note, it's not like only Americans can buy these fixed income securities or buy debt from the U.S.

Jessie: government.

Jess: Nearly half of all the U.S.

Jessie: foreign-owned debt comes from five countries.

Jess: As of January 2023, this is data from the U.S.

Jessie: Department of Treasury.

Jess: The top country that owns $1.08 trillion of our debt is Japan, which I did not realize.

Jessie: And then China's after them.

Jess: I did not know that.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: Such a good point, though.

Jessie: People say, hey, China owns all our debt.

Jess: This is how.

Jessie: They literally bought the treasuries because they thought it was a good investment.

Jess: Yes.

Jessie: That's right.

Jess: Because the U.S.

Jessie: always pays their debts.

Jess: It is called risk-free securities, and that's important to know.

Jessie: And that's why it's a little love triangle.

Jess: This is my safe bet, not a risk.

Jessie: It's going to compensate me great.

Jess: Stock market's going to offer you growth.

Jessie: That's also why technology is a little more volatile.

Jess: Where do you have the opportunity for growth? Most technology stocks.

Jessie: Hopefully this just adds clarity of how it all works.

Jess: And there are some takeaways.

Jessie: Not only it's, okay, if you see this increase in yield and you want to capitalize on that, you can buy an ETF to add exposure to these type of assets.

Jess: This is part of having an diversified portfolio, is having a portion that's risk-free.

Jessie: Someone might say, hey, if you're saving for something for six months and you know it's going to be six months to buy a house or whatever, it's okay to put it in a six-month treasury bill instead of a high-yield savings account.

Jess: Yes, there is slightly more risk because it is a market, but it is so, so, so, so minuscule and minimal in the risk scale.

Jessie: But are the yield rates better than they are? Yes.

Jess: They will be.

Jessie: Mm-hmm.

Jess: Well, I'm going to be looking at the bond market myself.

Jessie: I feel like I'm not diversified enough in it.

Jess: And I like thinking about it too in terms of short-term.

Jessie: I mean, I definitely got one of the I-bonds when interest rates started going back up.

Jess: And we talked about that last episode too with Mary, how Mary kind of heard about I-bonds on TikTok.

Jessie: I think my boss told me about it and was like, have you heard of an I-bond? I'm like, oh, let me go look that up.

Jess: What is that? And realized it's based off of the interest rates, which we knew were hiking up.

Jessie: So they were going to have a better return.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: It's well-related.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: It is all related.

Jess: That's a type of fixed income security, right? It is.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: It is.

Jessie: I forgot I already had one of those.

Jess: Like totally already have an I-bond accounts.

Jessie: I diversified.

Jess: Yes.

Jessie: I got to keep doing more of the thing.

Jess: This is, you did bring up an important part, why do I care about this as an investor and what do we do? And we should have another Analyze the Stock updated version for this market environment.

Jessie: So the reason why I hit technology first is because technology innovates and it takes a lot of capital to innovate.

Jess: So if you are a company that borrow, you rely on financing your debt.

Jessie: Like if we were considered a lean company here at Market MakeHer because our costs are like minimum, we can be honest with.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: They're under a hundred dollars a month to get this thing going because we run it.

Jess: It's just us.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: But that means we're lean.

Jessie: Like we're going to survive an economic downturn.

Jess: Right.

Jessie: Right.

Jess: But if we couldn't, if we required a lot of financing to keep this thing going and all of a sudden the cost for us to finance and we were a public company, that's going to make the value of us go down.

Jessie: Oh yeah.

Jess: Very quickly.

Jessie: And that's what happens.

Jess: That's why it goes to tech first.

Jessie: In addition to the, what it does to the dollar and overseas.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: So this is how you apply it now.

Jess: If this is the new normal of higher interest rates, which means higher financing costs, no longer are the days of 0% interest rates.

Jessie: That's great for high yield savings accounts and all of that aspect.

Jess: But that also means financing is going to be higher.

Jessie: And so companies who rely on financing, AKA have a lot of debt, that's going to come to maturity and they're going to might need, or they might need more.

Jess: I would stay away from those.

Jessie: Ah.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: That's what we would take away from this.

Jessie: That's a good takeaway.

Jess: So there's, it all comes together.

Jessie: Like I think it's, it's important if you're, if you invest in a stock market, you have to at least listen to this episode and understand how it works and you can leave it there if you want, but you just need to at least understand this.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: This is a good episode.

Jess: Or should we end it there? Yeah.

Jessie: That's great.

Jess: Let's do it.

Jessie: Let's see.

Jess: Okay.

Jessie: That was a lot of really great information.

Jess: Definitely a lot of things that I did not know about previously.

Jessie: I'm going to let my brain marinate on that.

Jess: I didn't know all the things about the treasury, the yield curve, all of our debt, how it affects the market.

Jessie: And it's really good being able to pull all the pieces together so we can get the full picture of how this all works and how everything affects each other.

Jess: So I'm probably going to have some follow-up questions for you about some of these things.

Jessie: And if any of our listeners do, you can, you know, holler at us on any of our social media channels or via Market Make Her, H-E-R, podcast.com.

Jess: We have a little forum on there you can fill out and you can just totally ask us a question if you want.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: Oh, yes.

Jessie: We'll also are considering having an episode where we just blast answer questions.

Jess: So let us know if that's something you want.

Jessie: Yeah.

Jess: This is another one of those topics, though.

Jessie: You can go down a very, very deep rabbit hole.

Jess: I think we have so many episodes on this type of market and those mechanics.

Jessie: But I just think it's so important to put the puzzle together and just get some clarity.

Jess: So thank you for making it this far.

Jessie: If you did learn something today and it gave you clarity, let us know in the comments and share it with your family, you know, spread that financial literacy.

Jess: We would certainly appreciate it.

Jessie: The algorithm would appreciate it, but they might appreciate it, too.

Jess: Yeah.

Jessie: Share the wealth.

Jess: And until next time, we're building knowledge and we're breaking down those barriers.

Jessie: So keep on tuning in.

Jess: Remember investing involves risk.

Jessie: There is always potential to lose money when investing in securities.

Jess: Market MakeHer provides educational content and resources for informational purposes only.

Jessie: We are not registered financial advisors and do not provide personalized investment advice.

Jess: Any information provided by Market MakeHer on our website or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional financial advice.

Jessie: Market MakeHer is not liable for any investment decisions made based on our content..