The end of the 30-year bond bull

Last week saw the biggest one-day sell-off in US Treasuries in two years. Other major bond markets followed suit. Whatever the cause, it is starting to look as though the bond bull market, which has lasted since the early 1980s, is ending.

Bill Clinton's campaign strategist, James Carville, said in the early 1990s that he wanted to be reincarnated as the bond market. It "can intimidate everyone". And government debt markets have "lost none of their power" to reduce us "to a quivering wreck" with their occasional violent moves, says the FT.

Last week saw the biggest one-day sell-off in US Treasuries in two years. The ten-year yield (yields climb as prices fall) gained 0.2% on Tuesday and kept climbing. By the end of last week, ten-year borrowing costs had risen by 14%. The yield is now almost a whole percentage point above its October low. That's a loss of more than 10% on a typical long-term bond fund since then, says MeanStreet's Evan Newmark. "That's real money."

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