As yields on bonds from the U.K., Spain, and Ireland make news lows this week, sovereign bond yields are digging ever deeper into the red. According to the Bloomberg Global Developed Sovereign Bond index, which tracks nearly $25 trillion worth of sovereign bonds globally, there are $9.4 trillion in negative-yielding sovereign bonds, making up 37% of the index. That's up from just 13% at the start of 2016.
Meanwhile, the value of global negative-yielding investment grade corporate debt is up 1,254% this year at $368 billion. That's according to data in the Bloomberg Global Investment Grade Corporate Bond index, which tracks 10,050 investment grade bonds globally. (These figures have backed up a bit in the past month with rising yields in Japan and the U.S. Click here for our previous update.)
The index now includes 445 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.
Back to Sovereign Bonds...
A few notable developments... new lows for 10-year yields in Spain, Ireland and the U.K. Below are their respective yield curves versus this time last year. Note how they've fallen (yellow line last year versus green line today).
Spain
U.K.
Ireland
