Financial Times (September 15)
“Credibility is the most precious resource a Treasury secretary has” and Scott Bessent’s has gone up in flames. “For reasons even his defenders find hard to explain, Scott Bessent has been on a credibility-spending spree. Bessent told the currency markets last week that he was ‘the house’ and warned that nobody should bet against him. But the bond markets did and he lost. What weight will traders attach to his next pronouncement?”
Tags: Bessent, Bet, Bond markets, Credibility, Currency markets, Defenders, Lost, The house, Traders, Treasury secretary, Warned
The Economist (August 29)
“The background music of Donald Trump’s second term has been the sound of norms breaking. On economic policy alone, the president has used tariffs to usurp Congress’s taxing powers and launched attack after attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, which he accuses of keeping interest rates too high.” While it may be “tempting to tune the noise out,” the Treasury’s recent intervention in bond markets “deserves to echo far and wide.” And “so long as government debt stays high,” more of these unconventional Treasury follies will probably ensue, but America will ultimately come to “regret Scott Bessent’s bond-market misadventures.”
Tags: Attack, Background, Bessent, Bond markets, Congress, Debt, Economic policy, Federal Reserve, Government, Independence, Interest rates, Intervention, Misadventures, Noise, Norms breaking, Regret, Tariffs, Taxing powers, Treasury, Trump, Unconventional, Usurp
The Economist (August 19)
“Bond markets are unnerving rich-world politicians. As stocks rise ever higher, yields have been climbing ominously.” Deutsche Bank analysts believe the U.S. Treasury’s latest move indicates “increasing administration unease” as the Treasury has announced plans to “increase its own purchases of longer-dated debt” from next month. “Bond markets are unsettled, and so, in turn, is America’s government.”
Tags: Analysts, Bond markets, Deutsche Bank, Government, Longer-dated debt, Ominously, Rich-world politicians, Stocks, Treasury, U.S., Unease, Unnerving, Unsettled, Yields
Barron’s (May 19)
“Bond markets haven’t been swayed by President Donald Trump’s latest assurances on the war with Iran, with yields holding stubbornly higher” and impacting the broader economy. “Elevated bond yields are contributing to rising inflation, with April producer inflation at its highest since December 2022, challenging growth investments.” It appears “the bond market is forcing a reckoning Trump isn’t able to stop.”
Tags: April, Assurances, Bond markets, Broader economy, Elevated, Growth investments, Iran, Producer inflation, Reckoning, Rising inflation, Swayed, Trump, War, Yields
Reuters (March 1)
“Strong investor inflows into bond markets this year mean traders and bankers are confident the European Central Bank will have a smooth start to unwinding its huge bond holdings, but the long term impact of its ‘quantitative tightening’ is a big unknown.”
Tags: Bankers, Bond markets, Confident, ECB, Holdings, Impact, Inflows, Investor, Long term, Quantitative tightening, Smooth, Strong, Traders, Unknown, Unwinding
Reuters (January 1)
“Heavy falls in stock and bond markets over the last year have cut the combined value of the world’s sovereign wealth and public pension funds for the first time ever – and to the tune of $2.2 trillion.”
Tags: $2.2 trillion, Bond markets, Heavy falls, Public pension funds, Sovereign wealth, Stock, Value
Bloomberg (December 20)
“It is hard to overemphasize the importance of” the BOJ’s latest “policy change. Starved of yield domestically and with the yen on a vicious weakening trend, Japanese investors have turned to bond markets elsewhere where yields are higher…. This change in policy is likely to make the yen much less of a one-way bet.”
Tags: BOJ, Bond markets, Importance, Investors, Japan, Policy change, Weakening trend, Yen, Yield
The Economist (November 6)
“Global bond markets are wakening from a long slumber.” The Fed “will wind down its vast bond-buying programme” just as bond investors react to higher inflation. “Across a group of 35 economies, five-year bond yields have risen by an average of 0.65 percentage points in the past three months.”
Tags: Bond markets, Economies, Fed, Global, Higher inflation, Investors, Wind down, Yields
Barron’s (October 1)
“The thing to worry about in global bond markets isn’t what the Bank of Japan is doing, but what’s happening to U.S. manufacturing.”
Tags: Bank of Japan, Bond markets, Global, Manufacturing, U.S., Worry
Bloomberg (May 17)
China’s “influence over global bond markets is beginning to eclipse that of the Federal Reserve. While traders still keep a close watch on decisions made by Fed Chair Janet Yellen in Washington, economic shifts in China are starting to matter even more for the global economy.”
Tags: Bond markets, China, China Economy, Fed, Influence, Traders, U.S., Yellen
