Here's what Wall Street is saying about that drop in German bunds
By Bloomberg
Yesterday yields on Germany’s bunds surged the most in two years.
This is great news for Bill Gross, who once managed the world’s largest bond fund. Last week he told Bloomberg that bunds are the “short of a lifetime.”
Other big investors - including DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach and Norway’s $900 billion sovereign wealth fund - have also jumped on the 'bouncing bund yield bandwagon' in the days following Gross's prognostication.
The stunning move in German government debt has also prompted a slew of research from strategists, economists and analysts across Wall Street.
Here's a sample of what they had to say.
Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid describes how shorting the short German debt trade is gaining fans:
It was also a bit of a nightmare to be long bonds yesterday as we saw a major sell-off despite a weak US Q1 GDP print and a fairly predictable FOMC statement. It was a good day for us 'secular stagnationists' but I'm not sure it would have helped us much in trading the report as bond market positioning seemingly outweighed all else. Having said that Bunds had already sent global yields higher after a slightly stronger German inflation report (+0.3% YoY, +0.2% expected) and a weak auction. A five year Bund auction yesterday only gathered EUR3.649bn in bids which fell short of the EUR4bn sales target. This was the first time a Bund auction had missed its target since 21 Jan and the third bond sale this year that was technically uncovered according to Bloomberg...Very few dared to short bunds 10-14 days ago when intra-day they fell below 0.05bp but now there's a bit of momentum we're seeing increasing interest in jumping on the bandwagon. Our view on European rates is incredibly confused at the moment as we believe in many different conflicting things. We believe in secular stagnation but think Europe will see a decent cyclical recovery in 2015 and we believe we're in a giant bond bubble but think we need it to be sustained by central banks to some degree to keep the debt heavy financial system solvent. Overall it probably points to a bias of a mild back-up in yields over the rest of the year but not an excessive one.
Barclays analysts led by Guillermo Felices tries to untangle the reasons behind the dramatic move:
The selloff in bunds was notable (almost doubling in one day, albeit from very low yields) and the likely triggers were better euro area macro data, month-end prepositioning and position squaring ahead of the FOMC meeting. This follows from an unwind of the 'ECB QE' trade yesterday: long bonds and equities and short EUR/USD. The selloff in bunds was notable (almost doubling in one day, albeit from very low yields) and the likely triggers were better euro area macro data, month-end pre-positioning and position squaring ahead of the FOMC meeting ... The selloff spilled over to other risky asset markets, notably EM.
While Bank of America Merrill Lynch's MacNeil Curry makes the point that technical factors could wind up sending bund yields even higher:
Bund yields have broken significant long-term support today, taking out the 50d (now 21.2bps) for the first time since Jan’14, as well as 11m channel support at 21.3bps. These breaks, coupled with the impulsive rise from the 4.7bps, Apr-17 lows, points to a medium-term turn in trend, targeting 38bps (1Q15 pivot), with the potential for a push to the 200d, at 63bps, before greater signs of a yield top emerge. Pullbacks should be limited to the 50d (now 21.2bps). This bullish for €/$. Indeed, the break of 1.1053/1.1120 (Mar-26 high and 6wk channel resistance) points to a deeper correction than previously anticipated. Look for gains to continue into 1.1270/1.1534 area resistance before renewed topping and a resumption of the long- term bear trend. Meanwhile, Euro Stoxx 50 should also suffer further as bund yields rise, particularly following the completion of a 5wk head-and-shoulders top. The topping pattern targets 3489 in cash before renewed basing potential.
As of Thursday morning in New York, the yield on the benchmark 10-year German bund is up about 4 basis points to 0.33 percent while the Stoxx Europe 600 Index is down 0.2 percent.
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