Another Washington "Watchdog" Proves to Be a Paper Tiger

I've talked about the dangers posed by the scary move the U.S. Treasury bond market made back on Oct. 15. And my cautionary tale was totally justified. Indeed, in the December 3 Wall Street Journal , the lead article in the Global Finance portion of the Money & Investing section was "Watchdog Warns of Risk in Markets." Apparently, the Office of Financial Research (OFR), the watchdog team created out of Dodd-Frank legislation under the "watchful" eye of the U.S. Treasury Department, observed the same move that I did - and found it just as rattling. According to The Journal , the OFR warned that "the system is vulnerable to repeats of what occurred in October when tumult in the trading of U.S. Treasury securities spread broadly to futures, swaps and options markets." The watchdog group's just-released third annual report soberly noted that "although the dislocation that peaked in mid-October was fleeting, we believe there is a risk of a repeat occurrence," and further warned that resulting volatility "raises a host of financial stability questions." The post Another Washington "Watchdog" Proves to Be a Paper Tiger appeared first on Money Morning - Only the News You Can Profit From .