Interest rates - Bond yields... Are they really going higher?

2 Mar 2023

Recently the market's expectation for the Fed Funds Rate peaking around 5% and then coming down at the end of Q4 2023 changed, with the market now seeing rates going to 5.5%. Many investors/analysts are discussing bond yields heading to 6% and staying higher for longer. However, is that going to happen? What is sentiment telling us right now? What is data indicating? If rates keep going up, what does this mean for other risk assets?

Sentiment right now seems to be quite bullish on yields (bearish on bonds). We are probably near a short-term top for bond yields, and I think this Fed hike may be the last one. The reason is that in Q3-Q4, we started seeing an actual economic deceleration, and inflation dropped significantly. In January, we had some weird data that might have to do with seasonality and adjustments on how inflation is calculated. The critical thing to note here is that rising interest rates act with long and variable lags and that the drop in inflation since July 2022 was caused by factors irrelevant to interest rate hikes.

So let's take things from the beginning... Since Covid hit, we have seen tectonic shifts in markets. Many things changed in the global economy, which was already in bad shape. It's unlikely that inflation will be contained for a long time, given that we are at the end of the debt cycle, the end of globalization, we are in a war cycle, we are at war against the climate, and the labor market is changing rapidly. Therefore, bonds will likely substantially underperform inflation in the next decade. In 2020 and 2021, fiscal policy was heavily used over monetary policy, and we still feel the effects of those policies and the aftereffects of Covid.

US monetary policy started shifting in March 2022, when the Fed began hiking rates and Quantitative tightening in July. Hence the changes in monetary policy couldn't have affected markets, as it takes more than 12 months for changes like this to have any effect. Of course, we also had the Russian invasion, which caused a commodity spike, and we had Europe and the US spending a lot on Ukraine and war equipment broadly. Then the relationship between US and China started worsening, while China was under lockdown and only started reopening in December - January.

The global economy is in terrible shape and will get into a steep recession eventually. Some data make it look strong at times, but it isn't. I think the Fed is looking and acting in the worst possible way, and it's trapped. At the moment, markets are afloat mainly because of human ingenuity, past fiscal and monetary stimulus, and the actions of Central banks like the BoJ, HKMA, and PBoC, as well as the BoE and ECB having some form of QE going on, while the Fed & US treasury is increasing market liquidity by draining the TGA, creating T-bills and bank reserves. It's unclear what will happen when all the interest rate hikes start affecting the economy, but Central banks and Governments will resume supporting markets and the economy. There are several tricks they can implement before they start cutting rates or continuing QE, or doing Yield Curve Control, but ultimately they will get to that point.

Now finally, let's get to the charts!

TLT / UB look like they are bottoming here. Swept the lows but closed slightly above them. Double top and significant gaps are higher, so that's where I think it's headed. I don't want to say that we will go massively lower, but for now, I treat this as a range, and I don't want to let my view that inflation will come down affect me. My target is the range highs and nothing more.



SHY looks like it capitulated and filled a double gap (partially) to the downside. That double gap occurred near the bottom, but now we have a massive double gap open to the upside, telling me it could go higher. Both that and TLT tell me yields down (bonds up)!


Short-term yields have been increasing, with US 2y getting near 5%. Maybe that's the psychological level everyone thinks will break easily, but it doesn't. The majority is eyeing 6%. Perhaps we do a slight break above 5% on the 2y, then fall quickly below it. The average bond yield (random average) is at 4.5%, it also made a new high, but this could be a trap. I am not seeing much strength here. The 10y, which I used as the base chart for today, reaches a critical level where the major correction to the downside began and has found some resistance there.



Finally, I wanted to discuss a few currencies and some overall observations. EURUSD and GBP are at support but looking weak. I can see how they could have one last dip and then higher, but I don't want to see them go much lower from here.




USDJPY and USDCNH are trading higher, with USDJPY being 10% lower from where it peaked. The interest rate differential was the same as now or lower, so something is happening here. Maybe rates are peaking? Maybe the interventions from CBs and Govs are working? Stocks are also much higher than back then, and they don't look like they will go down. Both pairs seem to be back in an uptrend which seems close to peaking. Based on how their charts look, I don't think the USD will keep strengthening, which is telling me that something big has shifted in markets, which is bullish risk assets, and potentially bearish on bonds yields.