The Treasury market may be just one spark away from exploding and sending 10-year yields all the way to 2%, suggesting that the rout of 2021 may not yet be over and raising the chances that other assets like emerging-market bonds might also be living on borrowed time.
Analysts are now putting the target on Treasury yields around half a percentage point higher than current levels following the rapid, reflation-fueled selloff that took the market by storm last week. Should that happen, it’s not just developed markets that will be left reeling. Developing-market bonds are increasingly at risk as investor concern grows about stretched valuations and the chances of a policy misstep by the Federal Reserve.
“The velocity of the moves in U.S. Treasury yields are now intensifying at a time when both hard currency and local emerging-market bonds are more vulnerable to such a move,” said Lisa Chua, a New York-based portfolio manager on the emerging-markets debt team at Man Group Plc’s hedge-fund unit Man GLG.
ING Groep NV say investors’ attitude toward holding longer-dated Treasuries has grown cautious, “to put it mildly,” exacerbating the potential for rapid selling on any sign of weakness in the market. They see yields on 10-year Treasuries rising another 50 basis points, joining the likes of BNP Paribas SA who also expect yields at 2% by year-end. That’s sounding the alarm that there is little to stop yields surging higher.
Investor jitters were on display again Wednesday, when a bigger-than-expected bond sale plan from the U.K. caused ructions globally. The U.S. 10-year yield jumped to around 1.49%, closing in again the one-year high above 1.60% that they reached last Thursday in the wake of a sloppy seven-year Treasury sale. The rate was around 1.47% Thursday morning in New York.
Concern over supply hitting the market is adding to fears inflation is set to accelerate, which could force central banks to begin tightening policy. Then there’s the risk liquidity evaporates to fuel sharper moves.
“The bond market has been sitting on a powder keg since last week,” wrote ING strategists led by Padhraic Garvey in a note to clients. “In this context, we do not blame investors for exiting at the first sign of a selloff.”
Liquidity in the $21 trillion Treasury market, which underpins the financial system, is under scrutiny following last week’s startling gyrations and weak auction demand. The gap between bid and offer prices for 30-year bonds hit the widest since the panic of March 2020.
All eyes will be on an appearance later on Thursday by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to see if he hints at possible action by the central bank to cap recent moves. In comments last week—before the violent gyrations on Thursday-- he indicated that the Fed sees rising yields as a sign of economic health. But that message could well be shifted.
The European Central Bank, meanwhile, has indicated it sees no need for drastic action to curb the rise in longer-term borrowing rates.