Category Archives: Government bonds

19/5/20: German Hawks vs ECB Doves?

My article for The Currency on the German Constitutional Court ruling regarding ECB's PSPP program: https://www.thecurrency.news/articles/17028/german-courts-are-fighting-with-the-ecb-what-does-it-mean-for-ireland.

31/7/19: Canary in the Treasuries mine

Judging by U.S. Treasuries, things are getting pretty ugly in the economy:

The gap between long-dated bond yields and short-dated paper yields has accurately predicted/led the last three recessions (the latter are marked by red averages in the chart).

16/7/19: Corporate Yields are Heading South in the Euro Land

Some of the euro area's junk-rated corporate debt is now trading at negative yields, and over 15% of near-junk debt is also charging the lenders to provide cash to financially weaker companies:

Source: WSJ

While the overall stock of negative yielding debt (sovereign and corporate) is now nearing $13.5 trillion worldwide:

Source: Bloomberg

All in 51 percent of all European Government bonds are trading at negative yields, and just over 30 percent of all investment grade corporate bond issued in Euro.

The percentage of negative yielding debt amongst junk-rated corporates is small. Bank of America ML estimated that the percentage of BB-rated European corporate bonds with negative yield rose from 0.225% at the end of May to 1.5% at the end of June. Back then, 14 companies had junk-rated bonds rated BB or lower with negative yields, with total market value of $3 billion.

The chart below plots corporate junk-rated bond yields index for the euro issuers:

Meanwhile, Greek Government bonds auction this week went into a massive demand overdrive. Greece sold more than EUR13 billion worth of 7-year bonds, almost EUR11 billion more than it planned originally, at the yields of 1.9 percent, or 2.4 percentage points above the Eurozone benchmark average. The spread to Eurozone benchmark has now fallen from 3.73 percent in March sale. In fact, U.S. 7 year bonds are selling at a yield of 1.97 percent, implying lower yields for Greek debt than the U.S. debt.

Here is the chart plotting Euro area sovereign yield curves for AAA-rated and for all bonds:

The yields on AAA-rated debt are negative out to 13 years maturity, and for all bonds to 8 years maturity.

12/6/19: All’s Well in the Euro Paradise

All is well in the Euro [economy] Paradise...

Via @FT, Germany's latest 10 year bunds auction got off a great start as "the country auctioned 10-year Bunds at a yield of minus 0.24 per cent, according to Germany’s finance agency. The yield was well below the minus 0.07 per cent at the previous 10-year auction in late May. The previous trough of minus 0.11 per cent was recorded in 2016. Notably, demand in Wednesday’s auction was the weakest since late January, with investors placing bids for 1.6-times more than the €22bn that was issued."

Because while the "Euro is forever", economic growth (and the possibility of monetary normalisation) is for never...

22/4/19: At the end of QE line… there is nothing but QE left…

Monetary policy 'normalization' is over, folks. The idea that the Central Banks can end - cautiously or not - the spread of negative or ultra-low (near-zero) interest rates is about as balmy as the idea that the said negative or near-zero rates do anything materially distinct from simply inflating the assets bubbles.

Behold the numbers: the stock of negative yielding Government bonds traded in the markets is now in excess of USD10 trillion, once again, for the first time since September 2017

Over the last three months, the number of European economies with negative Government yields out to 2 years maturity has ranged between 15 and 16:

More than 20 percent of total outstanding Sovereign debt traded on the global Government bond markets is now yielding less than zero.

I have covered the signals that are being sent to us by the bond markets in my most recent column at the Cayman Financial Review (https://www.caymanfinancialreview.com/2019/02/04/leveraging-up-the-global-economy/).