10 Year Bond Yield Under 4%

Interest rates on the benchmark 10 year treasury bonds slipped under 4% in the market today. If you have followed the news lately, some of the derivative pain in lender portfolios is coming from their expectation of higher rates. Seems the gee-whiz hedge guys bet that mortgage rates would rise when the Fed hiked the funds rate. See my previous post on Countrywide Financial.

I am one who doesn't believe rates have to rise for the housing bubble to burst. Japans' real estate bubble collapsed as their central bank drove rates down.