Reality Suspended in Rise of 10-Year Yield

This sampling of blog posts from Doug Kass was originally published today on Street Insight. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com readers. For more information about subscribing to Street Insight, please click here.

10-Year U.S. Note Yield Up Over 40 Basis Points
1/24/2007 12:18 PM EST

Now above 4.81%, the yield on the 10-year U.S. note is up over 40 basis points in the past few months. We have now made up half of last year's second-half decline in yields.

Thus far, this weakness has had zero impact on other asset classes -- even though it has been accompanied by the markets' no longer expecting a federal funds rate cut.

One would think that any further increase in the yield will likely be accompanied by a building of rate hike expectations, a further slowdown in mortgage activity and some pressure on equities.

In a normal world, that is!

iPhone Searches Surpass iPod Searches
1/24/2007 8:21 AM EST

Not surprisingly, given the introduction of the product, the volume of "iPhone" searches (for the week ended Jan. 13) have passed the weekly record iPod searches at any point last year, and in the latest week, the amount of searches for "iPhone" surpassed the searches for "iPod."

It will be interesting to follow the quantity of searches during the next month or so as the excitement dies out a bit following the MacWorld announcement.

Stay tuned -- I will!

At the time of publication, Kass held positions in Apple.

Nothing New in State of Union
1/24/2007 7:46 AM EST

President Bush took the center stage last evening in the annual State of the Union address.