That's no misprint. The value of negative yielding investment grade corporate debt is up +1,322% this year, hitting $387 billion. That's according to data in the Bloomberg Global Investment Grade Corporate Bond index, which tracks 9,976 investment grade bonds.
The index now includes 621 negative yielding bonds, versus just 59 at the start of the year, issued by companies such as General Electric, Siemens, Total, Unilever, Daimler, and Roche.
Meanwhile, on the sovereign bond front, there is $9.1 trillion in negative yielding bonds globally, according to the Bloomberg Global Developed Sovereign Bond index. That's up from $2.8 trillion at the start of the year. (Note: The yield on the Bloomberg Global Developed Sovereign Bond index is currently 0.49%, versus 1.14% in November.)
Don't expect this trend to reverse any time soon. With central banks globally desperately trying to reverse the general economic malaise expect yet more bonds to test negative territory.
