Forty-five percent of all government bonds yield less than 1 percent, Bank of America Corp. said as central bankers in Japan, Europe and the U.K. meet today to consider how to support their economies.

Speculation that the European Central Bank will start buying debt in the year ahead pushed German 10-year yields to a record low of 0.866 percent last week. The rally helped drive demand for Treasuries and other notes as investors sought higher interest payments than they can get in Europe. For Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, growth is weak enough that the next round of interest-rate increases will be less than usual.

“No one’s talking about rate hikes in Europe for several years,” Richard Clarida, an official at Pimco, said yesterday on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart” program in New York. “Japan is still in an easing cycle. Globally, while the Fed and the Bank of England may start to move in 2015, it’s not going to be your father’s or your uncle’s rate hike cycle.”

The U.S. 10-year yield, a benchmark for borrowing costs around the world, was little changed at 2.40 percent as of 1:31 p.m. in Tokyo, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader data. The price of the 2.375 percent note maturing in August 2024 was 99 3/4. Treasuries maturing from one month to three years all yielded less than 1 percent.

Japan’s 10-year yield was little changed at 0.53 percent. Australia’s increased one basis point to 3.44 percent. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

The Bank of Japan finished its meeting today by maintaining its record debt purchases of 60 trillion yen ($572.4 billion) to 70 trillion yen a year.

Rate Bets

Futures contracts indicate traders are betting the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the U.S. next year. Policy makers have kept their target for federal funds, the rate banks charge each other on overnight loans, at zero since 2008. The policy has capped bond yields and helped send the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a record high yesterday.

Bill Gross, who manages the $221.6 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, used his monthly outlook piece yesterday to reiterate his view that the Fed will limit how far it increases borrowing costs.

“Today’s levels of interest rates and stock prices offer a historically unacceptable level of risk relative to return unless the policy rate is kept low -– now and in the future,” Gross wrote. “That is the basis for the New Neutral, Pimco’s assumption that the Fed funds rate peaks at 2 percent or less in 2017.”

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