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Long Bonds Punish Investors as Goldman Sachs Sees Poor Outlook

©2015 Bloomberg News
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(Bloomberg) — Last year’s superstar of the Treasury market is punishing investors in 2015, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is calling it a “poor investment.” Thirty-year bonds have slumped 8 percent in the past two weeks, leaving investors with a loss of 4.8 percent since Dec. 31, based on Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. The move is an about face from 2014 when they surged almost 30 percent. Investors would have been better off in shorter maturities, with three-year notes returning 0.8 percent this year, the Bank of America data show. Money managers will get a chance to bid on these securities this week when the Treasury Department auctions $24 billion of three-year debt Tuesday, the same amount of 10-year securities Wednesday and $16 billion of 30-year bonds May 14. Long bonds are tumbling amid a global fixed-income rout as traders grow confident the Federal Reserve will delay raising interest rates in order to let the economy regain momentum. While the Fed’s strategy will support shorter maturities, those most sensitive to what the central bank does with its benchmark, the danger is that quickening inflation in the years ahead will eat into investors fixed payments. “Long-dated bonds remain a poor investment,” Francesco Garzarelli, who is based in London at Goldman Sachs International, wrote in a report Monday. “Prospective returns on government bonds remain negative.” Thirty-year yields were little changed at 3.03 percent as of 10:18 a.m. in Tokyo, Bloomberg Bond Trader data show. Benchmark 10-year notes yielded 2.27 percent. The figure will rise to 2.50 percent by Dec. 31, Garzarelli wrote.

Investors demanded as much as 205 percentage points to hold 30-year bonds instead of three-year notes Monday, the highest level in six months.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wes Goodman in Singapore at wgoodman@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Garfield Reynolds at greynolds1@bloomberg.net Nicholas Reynolds, Naoto Hosoda

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Men of Value Contributor

Men of Value Contributor

Articles by various contributors to Men of Value, an online magazine for American men who value our Judeo-Christian values of faith, family, and freedom.

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