Over in the world of lending to the government — we’re talking bonds and the bond market — things are moving. The payoff for investing in bonds, particularly long-term bonds, has been rising. The yields on 10-year note and 30-year bond have jumped half a percentage point or more over the past month, and moved up sharply in the past week.
In many ways, the bond market is a crystal ball of the economic future. If you think about it, a 30-year bond has to look good for 30 years. So when yields on these investments change, it means the future is changing — or at least, investors’ vision of the future is changing.
Some of that is good change.
“Economic growth has just been stronger than anticipated, and we’ve seen just a lot of resilience in the economy,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. (Schwab is a Marketplace underwriter.)
The data coming in, week by week, shows the economy of today — and by extension tomorrow — is looking stronger. Bond yields have adjusted upward to reflect that future.
But that’s about where the positives in the crystal ball end.
“Secondly, inflation has been a little bit stickier, hasn’t come down as much as hoped for,” Jones said.
Inflation is an investment killer. There would be no point in investing in bonds if inflation ate up all your gains. That’s another reason that yields have moved upward: Bonds have to account for future inflation.
But the biggest reason bond yields have been rising recently is just general nervousness about the future. There’s a name for that in the bond market: the term premium.
Term premium is the extra money you get if you’re going to the trouble of locking up your money for a decade or more in a bond.
“You deserve some additional compensation for taking the additional risk of holding long-term bonds,” said Steve Laipply, global co-head of iShares fixed income ETFs for BlackRock.
That risk has gone up.
“The market is uncertain about the future,” said Marvin Loh, senior global macro strategist at State Street Global Markets.
Inflation looks less stable, and so does policy.
“Mass deportations, full tariffs across the board, universal tariffs — this type of discussion does really impact where prices, wages and potential volatility around that inflation might shake out,” Loh said.
The crystal ball of the bond market has become cloudier.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
