Guest post by Doug Short.

I’ve updated the charts below through today’s close. The S&P 500 is now 7.66% off its interim high set on September 14th, the day after QE3 was announced. We’re still above the 10% correction benchmark. The 10-year note closed today at 1.58, which is 30 basis points off its interim high of 1.88, also set the day after QE3 was announced. The historic closing low was 1.43 on July 25th. But the big news today is Freddie Mac’s Weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 30-year fixed has set an all-time low of 3.34 percent.

Are yields heading lower? If the post-election selloff in equities continues, the 10-year yield could certainly revisit the levels of late July. Japan is an example (admittedly an extreme one) of a developed nation with its own currency that has experienced a relentless demand for government bonds, as this chart illustrates. Currently Japan’s 10-year yield is around 0.75, less than half that if its US counterpart.

Here is a snapshot of selected yields and the 30-year fixed mortgage one week after the Fed announced its latest round of Quantitative Easing.

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