Market pundits appear to be mostly dumbfounded as global bond yields continue to set record lows.  For some examples; the 10 year German bund fell below 1%., the Italian 10 year note has dropped below 2.60%, Spanish bonds fell to 2.40 % and Japan is offering a shocking one half of one percent to borrow funds for ten years. Even Greece, whose bonds were on ECB life support just two years ago, has a 10 year note yielding below 6%. Worldwide bond yields are at all-time lows, leaving market commentators scrambling to come up with a creative array of explanations for this phenomenon. Tensions in Ukraine and escalating violence in the Middle East are some favorites. But at least in Europe and Japan, most are willing to attribute record-low bond yields to the real cause…that is no growth and deflation.
Curiously, here in the United States–despite bonds yields heading towards 52 weeks lows around 2.31%–those perpetually-bullish market strategists are extremely optimistic about growth in the second half. Just as they have been each year since the Great Recession ended in 2009.
Few commentators in the U.S. are willing to admit the truth that plunging bond yields are signaling the same thing here that they are in the rest of the globe, which is the inability of massive central bank money printing to engender real growth. These pundits have a myriad of other excuses to explain our low borrowing costs. But my favorite red herring is to completely lay the cause for our plunging yields on the low yields that exist in Europe and Japan. They claim it is the yield spread alone that is causing a monetary deluge into U.S. debt.
It is true the benchmark U.S. yield has been running more than 1.30 percentage points above the yield on 10-year German Bunds since the beginning of July. This premium is the biggest since June 1999, which was before the euro was introduced. Leaving many to summarily conclude that our yields must fall commensurately to that of Japan and Europe; despite their contention that the U.S. growth and inflation rates will be drastically different than that of those same countries.Â
