German government borrowing rates in negative territory for first time

LONDON — Germany’s 30-year government bond yield turned negative for the first time ever on Friday as investors scrambled to buy less risky assets after an escalation in the U.S.-China trade conflict.

Core government bond yields across all maturities hit new record lows after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly ended a trade truce with China, announcing tariffs on another $300 billion of its goods which prompted a selloff in global equities.

The yield on the benchmark German 10-year note fell below -0.50 bps for the first time. Germany’s 30-year bond yield briefly dropped more than eight basis points to hit -0.006%.

That left the entire German yield curve in negative territory for the first time. The 30-year yield had been as high as 0.89% as recently as January.

“If Trump is upping the ante this isn’t great for global growth or trade and reinforces expectations that the ECB will do something,” said Matt Cairns, rates strategist at Rabobank.

Money markets moved to price in a 100% chance of a 10 basis point rate cut by the ECB at its next meeting.

The bond market’s huge rally in 2019 shows little sign of abating, with investors flocking into fixed income assets, particularly those with a top rating, on the first sign of weakness in the global economy or an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war.

TradeWeb data on Thursday showed that the pool of euro zone government bonds with negative yields surged in July to 4.8 trillion euros or around 60% of the total, the highest proportion since August 2016.

The share of euro zone government bond yields trading below the European Central Bank’s -0.4% deposit rate also increased, rising to 42% from 36% a month earlier.

Thursday’s announcement extends Trump’s trade tariffs to nearly all of the Chinese goods the United States imports. China’s foreign ministry said on Friday it would have to take countermeasures and doesn’t want a trade war, but isn’t afraid of fighting one.