from Bloomberg:
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The bond market isn’t buying all the optimism over the end of the global recession.
While the International Monetary Fund said last week the economic recovery will be faster than it forecast in July, investors pushed yields on government debt to the lowest level since April, according to the Merrill Lynch & Co. Global Sovereign Broad Market Plus Index. The gauge, which tracks $15.4 trillion of bonds worldwide, gained 0.73 percent this month, the most since 1.02 percent in March.
Debt investors can’t see a recovery strong enough to spur central bank interest rates anytime soon, especially with the Obama administration forecasting that unemployment in the U.S. - - the world’s largest economy -- will rise above 10 percent in the first quarter. After stripping out the effects of the U.S. government’s “cash for clunkers” program to buy new cars, consumer spending was unchanged in July, according to Commerce Department data released on Aug. 28.
“The bond market does not believe we will see rapid robust rates of growth,” said Jeffrey Caughron, an associate partner in Oklahoma City at The Baker Group Ltd., which advises community banks investing $20 billion. “The deleveraging of the consumer will act as a drag on growth, which will keep inflation to a minimum and interest rates relatively low.”
‘Bumpy Road’
Bond yields are lower now than when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in an Aug. 21 speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that “prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good.” European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said that while the economy is no longer in “freefall,” it faces “a very bumpy road ahead.”
also from Bloomberg:
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries rose, heading for their first two-month gain this year, as Chinese stocks fell and investors added to bets the global financial crisis will slow the pace of inflation.
The difference between yields on 10-year notes and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, which reflects the outlook among traders for consumer prices, narrowed for a sixth day, reaching 1.70 percentage points, from this month’s high of 2.05 points on Aug. 10. The spread has averaged 2.20 percentage points for the past five years.
“Low bond yields have become an international phenomenon, and one important element of this is subdued inflation,” said Don Smith, fixed-income strategist at ICAP Plc, the world biggest broker of trades between banks. “We are still in that twilight zone between recession and recovery.”
