Weekend Economists Be Mother May 8-10, 2015

[Demeter]

26. Wolf Richter: “Smart Money” Prepares to Profit from Bond Market Rout

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/wolf-richter-smart-money-prepares-profit-bond-market-rout.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street.

“If I had an easy way and a non-risk way of shorting a whole lot of 20- or 30-year bonds, I’d do it,” said our favorite uncle Warren Buffett on CNBC. These kinds of bonds have been on a terrific bull run ever since Paul Volker, as Chairman of the Fed, cracked down on inflation. But now, even the avuncular face of capitalism would bet against them...He was behind the curve. On April 22, Bill Gross, at Janus Capital, tweeted that 10-year German government debt was “The short of a lifetime.” The “only question” was “Timing.” Other bond gurus have jumped into the fray. Selling bonds outright, or selling them short if you didn’t already own them, particularly European government bonds, has become the thing to do in certain circles. Now valuations are falling, and yields are soaring off their ludicrously low levels.

So within the last 30 days, the 10-year US Treasury yield jumped from 1.83% to 2.23% as I’m writing this; the German 10-year Bund yield, instead of dropping below zero, skyrocketed from 0.05% to 0.60%; the Italian 10-year yield soared from 1.18% to 1.93%. And so on. Sharply rising long-term yields are percolating through the system. In the era when several trillion dollars of even crappy government debt is so overpriced that it sports negative yields, thanks to central-bank machinations, this bout of selling is somewhat inconvenient. Bonds with long maturities are particularly vulnerable. That’s what Buffett, the ultimate “smart money,” would focus on. And selling them is exactly what companies are doing at a record pace while there are still eager buyers for them out there.

When Oracle sold a bunch of bonds, it included $1.25 billion in bonds due in 2055. That’s 40 years from now. In return, Oracle will pay a coupon of 4.375%. Investors are dying for this kind of yield. Microsoft sold $2.25 billion of 40-year bonds back in February with a coupon of 4%. For both of them, it was a first. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance issued 50-year bonds. So far this year, according to Bloomberg, companies have sold $39 billion in bonds that mature in over 30 years. That’s over five times more than during the same period in 2014.

Companies have pushed out duration – though it costs them more to do, for now. But they’re locking in the cheap money for a generation. Maturities for bonds issued so far this year average 16.4 years. If it stays the same for the full year, it will be a record, and far above the average going back two decades of 10.7 years. Companies have sold $627.2 billion in bonds so far this year, up 6.57% from last year at this time, which had already been a record year. For the full year 2014, total issuance hit a vertigo-inducing $1.57 trillion. So, companies are borrowing a record amount to fund share buybacks, acquisitions, and other mouthwatering hocus-pocus goodies. They’re leveraging up their balance sheets with these records amounts of debt, and they’re venturing at a record pace into maturities that exceed the remaining lifespan of many bond-fund investors. These companies, too, are the ultimate smart money. They’re doing what Buffett would like to do, and what the shorts are now doing, this being the deal of a “lifetime”: they’re selling bonds that mature so far in the future that redeeming them is going to be another generation’s problem.

IBG-YBG I'LL BE GONE, YOU'LL BE GONE...BUT THE LUCKLESS SOULS THAT COME AFTER WILL HAVE THEIR FUTURES LOCKED IN...