Ben Was a No-Show

Poor Treasury Auction Rattles Stock Investors - The indirect bid -- demand from domestic and foreign institutions, including foreign central banks -- for the $34 billion five-year Treasury note auction was 30%, compared to 48.9% from the previous auction in February and an average of 30.1% for the last 10 auctions.

Due to low demand for government paper, Treasury rates rose and the stock market fell. Last week

the Fed said that over the next six months, it would buy as much as $300 billion of Treasurys in maturities from two to 10 years, starting as early as next week.

Many went to the party because Ben Bernanke said he would be there. When he didn't show, people started leaving. © 2009 Stephen Yuen

[Update: the brief post above mainly concerned the debt, not the stock, market. As for the stock market, it was up sharply in the morning, down later in the day after the Treasury auction news, then up by about 1% at the close. If you're coming here for investment advice, you're in the wrong place.]