European Bonds Front Running ECB
Econmatters | May 29, 2014 12:21AM ET
There has been a lot on bond buying in Europe and that enthusiasm has transferred over to the United States with the thought that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is going to embark on some massive bond buying stimulus program similar to the US Federal Reserve`s bond buying stimulus program. These moves in some of these European bonds and even the U.S. 10-Year yield moving 20 basis points ahead of the announcement sure are setting bond markets up for some massive disappointment compared to the actual much-hyped bond buying program announcement scheduled for June 5.h3 Portugal 10-year Bond Yield/h3
Belgium 10-year Bond Yield
This sure seems like a buy-the-rumor, sell-the-news event if there ever was one in financial markets given the fact that Mario Draghi and the ECB has been a serial disappointer for actually delivering on his rhetoric with actual policy actions. Spanish 10-Year yields being close to 2.80%, German 10-Year Yields at 1.33%, Italy 10-Year Yields at 2.93%, Belgium 10-Year Yields at 1.87% and France 10-Year Yields at 1.72%. These sure seem out of whack with the solvency reality circus of just three years ago. Did these countries all of a sudden become balance sheet healthy and solvent overnight? What kind of risk is there in owning these notes long-term? This cannot possibly be sustainable—talk about bubbles in financial markets and mispricing of risk!
h3 Spain 10-year Bond Yield/h3
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There has got to be a lot of money made by taking the other side of this trade. This is money spent by European governments we are talking about, with more social programs than you can possibly imagine governments spending their tax dollars on. There are two issues here—one may be a supposed deflation in Europe, the other is that these countries are going in the other direction in terms of solvency issues, with climbing Debt to GDP Ratios. Are these low yields really going to hold over time? Are these investors being paid a high enough yield on these bonds for the solvency risks they are taking?
h3 Italy 10-year Bond Yield/h3I imagine this is just traders being traders and trying to front run an economic event, but some of these yield levels just don`t jive with the fundamentals of these countries' financial ability to pay off their debt. And the situation seems to be getting worse, not better. But I realize this isn`t about solvency issues, these trades are put on to make money in the short term.
Well, they have succeeded in making a lot of money, but the owners will still have to sell these same bonds at some point. Just like during Gold shorting attacks, we will see where price shakes out after closing out these positions. My bet is that European yields are higher three months from now, and maybe even right after the Draghi ECB announcement.
When in doubt, buy the rumor but sell the actual news into financial markets.
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