An interesting chart from the FT and Deutsche Bank’s Torsten Slok detailing the amount of major government debt that is at a negative yield (ie :trading below 0%).
58% of outstanding German debt or all bonds out to 7.5 years maturity are trading below 0%. This demand is from a combination of the ECB purchasing billions of euro bonds each month, investors that are mandated to hold bonds and investors that fear deflation will increase their purchasing power in the future – they will accept a negative return in the hope that when they access their capital in future it has greater purchasing power.
