Treasury Bonds Gain Ground on U.S., Euro Zone Data
Investors scooped up U.S. Treasury bonds on Thursday as disappointing economic data from the U.S. and the euro zone boosted the allure of haven assets. The buying sent the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to near a 14-month low just made last week. The yield on the 10-year German government bond briefly dipped below 1% for the first time on record. Bond yields fall as their prices rise.
“Lower bond yields reflect longer term worries about global growth and inflation,” said Guy Haselmann, head of U.S. interest rate strategy at Bank of Nova Scotia in New York. “Six years after the crises with massive global and monetary and fiscal stimulus, the world has only been able to grow tepidly and without inflation.”
In recent trading, the 10-year Treasury note was 9/32 higher, yielding 2.394%, according to Tradeweb. The yield dropped to 2.35% on August 8, the lowest intraday level since June 2013.
The 10-year German government bond’s yield fell to as low as 0.997% during Thursday’s session, according to CQG. The yield recently was 1.007%, according to Tradeweb.
Lower German yields have attracted investors to buy U.S. Treasury bonds which offer superior yields, one of the factors sending U.S. yields lower this year.
The extra yield investors obtain by owning the 10-year Treasury note instead of the 10-year German bond was about 1.39 percentage points Thursday. The premium hit 1.4 percentage points on July 30, the widest since 1999.
Thursday’s data highlight the still uneven and fragile global economic growth.
In the U.S., the latest weekly jobless claims rose by 21,000 to 311,000. Economists had expected 295,000. The report followed Wednesday’s flat retail sales in July, casting some doubt over whether the U.S. economy could grow in the second half of 2014 as robustly as many economists currently expect.
More gloomy news came from the euro zone–the region’s economy showed no growth in the second quarter. Germany, the region’s largest economy, contracted by 0.2%, highlighting the fragile recovery amid geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.
Analysts said the data raised speculations that major central banks would keep interest rates lower for longer to support growth, encouraging investors to buy bonds. Ultralow rate policy from central banks have been a main factor keeping bond yields near record lows over the past few years.
Investors expect the Federal Reserve to not start raising interest rates until the middle of 2015.
Economists and analysts also believe that the European Central Bank needs to add more stimulus later this year to support the economy and fight against stubbornly low inflation.
Economists have cautioned that low inflation could turn into deflation, persistent decline in consumer prices that will discourage consumer and business spending, a scenario that have plagued Japan for over a decade.
The prospect of further ECB actions fueled a broad price rally Thursday in euro zone’s government bond markets. Greece was the best performer as the nation provides the highest yield, a sign investors are hungry for yields in a low yield world.
The yield on the 10-year Greek government bond fell by 0.24 percentage points to 6.07%. The yield on the 10-year bond in Spain fell to 2.396% and the yield on the 10-year bond in Italy slid to 2.677%.
“The central banks will keep rates low, which means sovereign bonds [in the euro zone] that offer higher yields will be big beneficiaries,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at National Alliance Capital Markets in New York.