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AI Summary. Concentrating a portfolio in the largest stocks reduces long-term compound returns, with geometric mean annual returns falling from 11.30% for a broad portfolio to 7.71% for holding only the single largest stock, because higher volatility in narrower portfolios widens the gap between arithmetic and geometric returns.
Hendrik Bessembinder Arizona State UniversityAI Summary. Global institutional investors hedge only 41% of their foreign-currency exposure — the lowest rate since at least 2015 — leaving portfolios heavily exposed to dollar depreciation. A sudden shift in sentiment could trigger a self-reinforcing dollar selloff as unhedged holders rush to reduce exposure simultaneously.
Ruth Carson, Masaki Kondo, and Anya Andrianova BloombergCore argument: Global institutional investors hedged just 41% of their foreign-currency exposure as of June 30—the lowest share since at least 2015—leaving dollar-denominated assets acutely vulnerable to a sentiment-driven selloff.
Sift through the filings of pension funds and insurers around the world and one thing stands out: some of the biggest holders of US assets have little protection against a weaker dollar, leaving the currency at risk of steeper declines if sentiment suddenly turns. Across markets [Canada, Denmark, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and Finland for which data is available] investors hedged just 41% of their foreign-currency exposure as of June 30 — the lowest since at least 2015. While not a complete picture, it offers a glimpse into how the sudden rush last year to hedge against dollar losses triggered by President Donald Trump’s global tariff rollout has faded as the US currency slowly stabilized.AI Summary. 54 percentage point yield increase since 2022. The shift reflects reduced Federal Reserve absorption of long-duration debt, forcing private investors to demand greater compensation for interest rate risk.
Hanno Lustig The Two CentsCore argument: Term premium accounts for 1.56 percentage points — nearly two-thirds — of the 2.54-point rise in the 10-year Treasury yield since March 2022, dwarfing the 98-basis-point contribution from rising expected short rates.
I plot a decomposition of the increase in the 10-year yield into a term premium component and a future short rate component. According to this measure, a big chunk —1.56 pps (or nearly 2/3 rds)— of the 2.54 pps increase in the 10-year yield since March 2022 is actually due to an increase in the term premium. That premium (the red line in the figure) turned negative around 2015, and [when] it bottomed out in 2020, yields (black line) were trading 135 bps below the path of future short rates (blue line). That’s not entirely surprising: The Fed was absorbing a large share of Treasury issuance at the long end of the yield curve —as well as MBS issuance— effectively removing a great deal of interest rate risk from the market.AI Summary. Heavy corporate investment in new technology can shift businesses from net savers to net borrowers, absorbing household savings and widening the current account deficit, as occurred during the early-2000s technology boom.
Robin Brooks Robin Brooks SubstackCore argument: Government dissaving—not corporate capital expenditure—is the primary driver of U.S. domestic savings consumption and current account deterioration.
The chart shows quarterly data for the US saving-investment balance going back to 1990. This is an identity that apportions the current account balance into net saving in various sectors of the economy. Households tend to be net savers, as is the financial sector and non-financial corporates. The government tends to be a net borrower. The last time we had a lot of excitement about technological innovation and higher productivity growth was in the “IT bubble” of the early 2000s, which saw non-financial corporates flip from being net savers to borrowers, i.e. the capex buildout at the time was very large and - for a few years - accounted for the entire current account deficit. Nothing like that’s happening now. It’s government dissaving, i.e. the budget deficit, that’s eating up resources, while the non-financial corporate sector stayed a net saver in data through the first quarter of this year.AI Summary. The gap between long-term government bond yields and equivalent swap rates has narrowed to its smallest in months, reflecting increased investor willingness to hold long-dated government debt following expanded buybacks of longer-dated bonds.
Greg Ritchie and Elizabeth Stanton BloombergCore argument: The 30-year Treasury-swap spread narrowed to its smallest since February following Bessent’s announcement, as Treasuries outperformed equivalent-maturity swaps and benchmark yields drifted lower.
Since Bessent’s announcement, Treasuries have outperformed equivalent-maturity swaps, narrowing the 30-year spread to the smallest since February. Swaps are popular with some investors as an alternative to owning bonds; the gap between [swap rates] and US government yields [gauges] how willing [investors] are to hold Treasuries instead. The 10-year swap spread has compressed too, with the gap three basis points smaller at around 38 basis points. Still, the recent drop has only dented a years-long rise in long-term US government borrowing costs. The 10-year US yield inched up 3bp to 4.66% after touching 4.75% last week. “While conducting buybacks at the long end of the yield curve may technically decrease yields, higher structural US budget deficits, which [require] a significant supply of Treasuries to finance the US debt, [are] not changing anytime soon,” said Libby Cantrill, head of public policy at Pimco.AI Summary. The safety premium that investors historically paid for US government bonds over equivalent alternatives has compressed toward zero and, at longer maturities, reversed — with global investors now pricing foreign government bonds as safer than US Treasurys.
Hanno Lustig Aspen Economic Strategy GroupCore argument: The U.S. Treasury safety premium has compressed to near zero post-2022 and at points reversed, signaling that markets no longer treat Treasurys as unambiguously superior to credit-risk-adjusted corporate equivalents.
The top panel uses the credit risk-adjusted AAA-Treasury spread. We use the CDS to strip the default-risk compensation out of the corporate-bond yield. What remains is a clean estimate of the safety premium that investors pay for Treasurys over otherwise-equivalent corporate exposure. Post-2022, it has compressed toward zero, and at points, has reversed. The bottom panel uses the Treasury Premium, defined as the difference between the synthetic-dollar foreign sovereign yield and the US Treasury yield at the same maturity. The synthetic-dollar foreign yield is constructed by swapping the coupon payments on foreign G10 sovereign bonds into dollars using the foreign-exchange forward market. This eliminates currency risk over the life of the bond, so the resulting dollar cash-flow stream is directly comparable to a US Treasury yield of the same maturity. At longer maturities, global investors now seem to prefer the safety of foreign G10 bonds.AI Summary. Japan holds $1tn in U.S. government bonds — the largest foreign position globally — giving the U.S. a strong incentive to support a stronger yen rather than risk Japan selling those bonds or raising rates sharply enough to redirect domestic capital away from U.S. debt markets.
Katie Martin Financial TimesCore argument: Japan’s $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury holdings—the world’s largest foreign position at ~4% of total outstanding—give the U.S. a direct strategic interest in defending the yen, as Japanese dollar sales would intensify pressure on a 10-year yield already at 4.7%.
Japan has two traditional routes to push up the battered yen. One is a massive rise in Japanese interest rates, and the other is massive sales of dollars — i.e., of US Treasuries. Neither would be good news for the US. Japanese yields are already seriously elevated by historical standards — 2.8% on the 10-year and 4% on the 30-year. The US is just not in a position to lose a big buyer of Treasuries when its own 10-year yield is tickling 4.7% and the 30-year is well over 5. And it certainly can’t tolerate a big seller of Treasuries, in the form of Japanese authorities selling dollars, hoping to prop up the yen. (Japan’s Treasury holdings already lead the world, at $1tn, or just below 4% of the total outstanding.) Much better to stand behind Japan and hope to scare off the yen sellers. Recent use has been made of the Exchange Rate Stabilization Fund [ESF] to signal that intent. Bessent has also said he will encourage the Fed to bump up Fima, the Fed’s international repo facility, in the coming months. This tool has rarely been wheeled out since it was established during the 2020 Covid shock. Its current $60bn per counterparty, per day limit has been reached just once. The fact that US authorities approved the use of this facility suggests the US side sees potential risk that fx intervention could push up US Treasury yields.