The numbers have reached a scale that markets can no longer ignore. The U.S. fiscal deficit jumped to $432 billion in July alone, the biggest monthly shortfall since early 2021, pushing the year-to-date gap to nearly $1.8 trillion, with the full-year deficit expected to approach $2 trillion. The national debt is nearing the $40 trillion milestone, and the cost of financing it has ballooned to roughly $1.2 trillion so far this year, on pace for about $1.37 trillion for the full fiscal year.
The result has been a sharp move higher in long-term Treasury yields. The 30-year bond hit 5.33% in mid-August — its highest level in 19 years — while the 10-year note pushed toward 4.75%, a 20-month high before the Treasury stepped in this week to announce increased buying of longer dated bonds. Bond strategists point to a combination of forces for the recent high: mounting deficit concerns, inflation still stuck above the Fed's 2% target, and a wave of corporate debt issuance competing with Treasurys for investor cash. Some are calling it the return of the "bond vigilantes" — investors demanding higher yields to keep funding a government that keeps borrowing more.
Because bond prices move opposite to yields, when yields rise, existing bonds — which pay lower fixed rates — become less valuable, so their prices fall. And the longer a bond's maturity (its duration), the more its price drops for a given rise in yields. A 25 basis point rise in long-term yields can translate to roughly a 4% price loss in a long-duration bond fund.
That's why the debt story is fundamentally an ETF story. The funds holding long-dated Treasurys were absorbing the full force of the yield spike, while short-duration and alternative funds are becoming the market's refuge. While yields have since retreated post-Treasury announcement and there is a potential for a surge in buying 20+ year bond ETFs, the longer term impact to long-dated bonds remains to seen.
TLT is ground zero for the debt-and-yields story. As the most popular long-duration Treasury ETF, it holds bonds with 20+ years to maturity — exactly the part of the curve recently hammered as the 30-year yield hit multi-decade highs. TLT has slumped into a correction and touched a 22-year low in August, and investors have pulled more than $4.4 billion out of the fund this year. Strikingly, even a near-5% yield wasn't enough to stem the slide: the price losses from rising rates have overwhelmed the income the fund pays. TLT is the clearest example of how duration risk works against investors when the government's borrowing costs climb.
#year
The result has been a sharp move higher in long-term Treasury yields. The 30-year bond hit 5.33% in mid-August — its highest level in 19 years — while the 10-year note pushed toward 4.75%, a 20-month high before the Treasury stepped in this week to announce increased buying of longer dated bonds. Bond strategists point to a combination of forces for the recent high: mounting deficit concerns, inflation still stuck above the Fed's 2% target, and a wave of corporate debt issuance competing with Treasurys for investor cash. Some are calling it the return of the "bond vigilantes" — investors demanding higher yields to keep funding a government that keeps borrowing more.
Because bond prices move opposite to yields, when yields rise, existing bonds — which pay lower fixed rates — become less valuable, so their prices fall. And the longer a bond's maturity (its duration), the more its price drops for a given rise in yields. A 25 basis point rise in long-term yields can translate to roughly a 4% price loss in a long-duration bond fund.
That's why the debt story is fundamentally an ETF story. The funds holding long-dated Treasurys were absorbing the full force of the yield spike, while short-duration and alternative funds are becoming the market's refuge. While yields have since retreated post-Treasury announcement and there is a potential for a surge in buying 20+ year bond ETFs, the longer term impact to long-dated bonds remains to seen.
TLT is ground zero for the debt-and-yields story. As the most popular long-duration Treasury ETF, it holds bonds with 20+ years to maturity — exactly the part of the curve recently hammered as the 30-year yield hit multi-decade highs. TLT has slumped into a correction and touched a 22-year low in August, and investors have pulled more than $4.4 billion out of the fund this year. Strikingly, even a near-5% yield wasn't enough to stem the slide: the price losses from rising rates have overwhelmed the income the fund pays. TLT is the clearest example of how duration risk works against investors when the government's borrowing costs climb.
#year
6 hours ago
