O corte e cola abaixo vem do Economist desta semana, e mostra o "flight to safety" para títulos sem risco do Tesouro dos EUA, derrubando suas taxas e aumentando seus preços, o que não deixa de ser uma comédia, já que a crise estourou lá, e os EUA até agora parecem ser o país mais duramente afetado (os dados de desemprego em 2008 são de chorar...)
Incidentalmente, até o nosso querido Brasilll conseguiu emplacar uns títulos de 10 anos esta semana, com alta demanda e um "spread" relativamente baixo (370 pontos base sobre os títulos do Tesouro dos EUA, ou 3,7%).
From The Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire
Panicky investors have pushed bond yields in America near to historic lows
As the global economic crisis has prompted investors to retreat to safety, demand for many developed-country government bonds, most notably those of the US, has surged. With yields for some government securities consequently near historic lows—implying prices at corresponding highs—there is growing talk of a bond-market bubble. This is fuelling concerns that, once confidence begins to improve, investors will pull out of government bonds in favour of higher-yielding assets, potentially causing fresh disruption to financial markets.
Unsurprisingly, developments in the market for US Treasuries have underpinned the bond-bubble debate. This is not only because of the size, liquidity and global importance of the US Treasury market but also because investors continue to regard US government debt as the safest of all assets. Some may regard this as ironic, given that the US is the epicentre of the global crisis and that the monumental cost of bailing out US banks and providing economic stimulus ought, in theory, to undermine the US's creditworthiness. However, the global flight to safety has trumped all other considerations. Despite low returns and the prospect of a sharp deterioration in the US fiscal position, government debt remains highly attractive to investors.
How attractive? Yields on 10-year Treasuries are at about 2.6%. This is slightly higher than the lows of mid-December, but compares with 3.8% a year earlier. Yields have fallen dramatically since the financial-market turmoil that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, in mid-September. Indeed, such has been investors' appetite for US government debt that in December, for the first time, the secondary-market yield on three-month Treasuries turned negative: in other words investors were paying the US government to hold its debt. In short, investors are now tolerating far more meagre returns, and in some cases even seem willing to lose money, simply for the privilege of parking their cash somewhere safe.
It is a broadly similar story elsewhere. UK 10-year government bonds are yielding about 3.3%, down from 4.5% a year ago. Two-year bonds are yielding about 1.1%, down from 4.3% a year ago. German two-year government bonds yielded 1.7% on January 6th, down from 3.8% a year earlier.
What all this means for now is that relatively creditworthy governments are able to borrow very cheaply. Given the immense fiscal costs of various financial-sector bail-outs and stimulus packages, and the prospect of more spending to come, this is a welcome development for the governments involved. Of course, borrowers perceived as less creditworthy are not enjoying the same low interest rates. The spread between Italian two-year government bonds and US Treasuries, for example, has widened to 212 basis points, from 124 basis points a year ago. And commercial borrowers continue to face tight credit conditions.
The key question is what happens when the current bond-market boom unwinds. (Whether or not the boom constitutes a "bubble" is perhaps academic; some would argue that it is not a bubble because the underlying motivation has been risk aversion rather than speculation.) US Treasuries gave investors a return of about 14% last year, according to Merrill Lynch estimates, a very strong performance in the context of the big falls in global stockmarkets. But sooner or later, the extreme risk aversion evidenced in the flight to government bonds, and the concurrent freezing up of credit markets, is likely to ease, even if only slightly. Indeed, by some measures this may already be beginning to happen. Some Treasury yields have risen slightly on expectations of a large fiscal package from the incoming Obama administration.
But the very measures governments are taking to restore their economies to health are also likely to prove detrimental to the bond market. Some analysts and investors are already talking of bond prices being "ridiculously" high. Moreover, government policy poses risks to bondholders on two fronts. First, if stimulus efforts work, they will encourage investors to begin to move into slightly riskier assets, depressing bond prices. Second, the large stimulus packages planned by many developed-country governments—again, particularly, the US—will require further large increases in borrowing that could flood bond markets with new issues and undermine prices. The prospect of a disorderly bond-market correction is beginning to cause concern, given the global implications of a sharp fall in the value of US Treasuries, which are widely held by foreign governments and central banks. In the doomsayers' scenario, institutional investors would rush to sell their Treasury holdings into a falling market, with authorities in countries like China potentially doing the same and compounding the problem. At worst, this would lead to a collapse of the US dollar, a surge in US interest rates and even concerns about the sovereign's creditworthiness.
Yet such fears should not be overplayed. For one thing, it is by no means certain that the market has peaked. Even if government stimulus measures succeed beyond expectations, the severity of the global downturn means that the economic recovery is likely to be slow and fitful. So even if investors soon become slightly less risk-averse, continuing economic uncertainty and the risk of deflation should ensure that the majority will find bonds attractive for some time. Commercial banks, for example, can be expected to increase their holdings of US Treasuries as they continue to repair their balance sheets. The US Federal Reserve may also begin buying bonds directly from the US government, which would support prices. Nor is it clear that a massive bond sell-off by foreign holders of US assets, such as China, is anything more than a theoretical risk. China would have to adjust its dollar-centric exchange-rate policy in order to do so, with uncertain and potentially disruptive consequences for its domestic economy. Moreover, any reduction in Chinese holdings of US bonds might conceivably be offset by increased intervention by Japan, which is concerned about the strength of the yen.
Inflation is also a source of uncertainty for bond markets. Markets are caught between fears of a debt deflation spiral (good for bonds) and fears that government policy responses will eventually fuel high (or even hyper-) inflation. This is the key question facing bond markets. If sustained deflation did emerge, it could push yields down even further and prolong the bond bull market. But a sharp rise in inflation would have the opposite effect, sharply raising yields and causing heavy losses to investors who bought during the recent rise in the market.
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