The wisest and most successful bond investor of all time, Bill Gross, has dumped his bond fund’s $150 billion investment in U.S. bonds. One should not ignore the importance of this event. The largest bond fund in America no longer believes that Treasury bonds are a good investment. Moreover, Gross is not alone. Blackrock, the world’s largest money manager, is now underweighting Treasuries overall and reducing the duration of the bonds it still holds. That means they are dumping their long-term bonds, which are the most sensitive to interest-rate changes, in favor of Treasury instruments that mature in a year or less.
Other bond funds, such as the $20 billion Loomis Sayles funds, are also forgoing Treasuries in favor of high-yield corporate bonds. Virtually everywhere you look, from great investors such as Warren Buffett to insurance companies such as Allstate, everyone is dumping their long-term U.S. debt and either buying debt that matures in less than a year or moving their money elsewhere.
So who is still buying U.S. debt? According to Bill Gross, the “old reliables” — China, Japan, and OPEC — are still in the market for 30 percent of all new debt. The rest, however, is being purchased by the Federal Reserve. There is no one in else in the market. For the first time ever, Americans are refusing to purchase their own country’s debt.
Full story: Running for the Exits – National Review Online
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