Government Bonds

So that’s the banks, rates, swaps and currency traders that all apparently got the wrong end of the stick. Explaining how you might arrive at a future monetary policy decision is a challenging and fine balancing act, but as Governor of the Bank of England that is of course one your jobs.

Following a turbulent week for rates markets, Eoin Walsh outlines what investors can expect as the Bank of England and other central banks meet this week.

This looks to us like a buy-into-the-dip opportunity, but investors should be wary of taking on too much rate sensitivity as the move in risk-free curves is likely to persist until the rate hike cycle is actually on the way.

In the last month, global government bond curves have had a torrid time, with significant steepening seen across US Treasury, UK Gilt and German Bund yields.

From time to time, Treasury yields actually become the source of risk for financial markets.

On Wednesday, the Fed moved one step closer to tapering and even put quite a clear timeframe for it, while on Thursday, the Bank of England openly talked about rate hikes.

Our base case is for a continuation of quite high growth and a modest inflation overshoot. For bond investors, positioning for stagflation could be a dangerous trade if that base case bears out

As we rapidly descend upon the fourth quarter of this extraordinary year, we think some of the risks fixed income investors faced back in Q1 will rear their heads again before the end of 2021.

Whether the Bank of England halts all purchases in August or merely begins to slow the pace of purchasing later in Q4 this year, by 2022, less technical support will exist for gilts.

We believe UK government bonds are ultimately most vulnerable to a rise in inflation, and the 10-year Gilt currently trading at 0.73% does not come close to compensating for this.

With treasury yields moving aggressively higher this year, anyone reading or listening to the financial press will have become very accustomed to headlines highlighting the negative performance of “Bonds”.

The gradual backup in yields since the onset of the pandemic has given Treasuries a little more potency to protect bond portfolios, though we don’t see the rise being anywhere near big enough for them to behave like they used to.