Welcome to Charts that Count.
There are no upsides to a global health crisis.
But the coronavirus, if nothing else,
has made debt cheaper to bear, throwing
a lifeline to borrowers at a time
of incredible financial stress.
Acute worries about future growth,
abetted by an aggressive programme of bond buying
by the US Federal Reserve, has driven the yield on the US
10-year Treasury down to just over half a per cent.
Other forms of debt caught in the same gravitational field
are getting cheaper too.
But who benefits?
Yes, governments and companies can borrow more cheaply.
But what about human beings?
Perhaps the most important way that lower rates
helps consumers and families is through lower-priced mortgages.
And indeed, the average rate on the US 30-year fixed rate
mortgage has fallen to 3.5 per cent, by historical standards
a very cheap mortgage.
One that any homeowner could brag
about at a backyard barbecue, if we're ever
going to have those again.
Look, however, at that little spike in mortgage rates just
after the Covid crisis began.
Investors, spooked by the idea that homeowners
would default on their mortgages,
lost their appetite for mortgage debt.
That left mortgage lenders with no place
to sell newly originated mortgages to.
Mortgage prices spiked and the market
clogged, prompting the Fed to step in and buy
mortgage bonds directly.
That seemed to work, bringing mortgage prices down.
But let's look closer.
This last chart shows the difference
between the 30-year mortgage rate and the 10-year Treasury.
This spread, as it is known, usually
hovers at around 1.5 to 2 percentage points.
This week, it stands at 3 per cent.
In other words, mortgages are not cheap, not cheap at all
given where government debt is trading.
If the Fed wants consumers to get
the full benefit of low interest rates,
it still has more work to do.