Navigating the Tough Ceiling: Euro Rates Struggle to Break Recent Range. Primary Market Activity Thrives During Lull as Bond Yields Rise
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The recent range is a tough ceiling to break for euro rates
Even if ECB hawks continue to talk up the odds of July and September hikes, with the former still flagged as a more than even probability even by centrist members, it will take a pick-up in activity data for markets to price a terminal rate above 4%, as they did before the Silicon Valley Bank failure in March.
We’re not expecting a huge change in communication in short, and markets will focus on changes in economic data instead to infer how many more hikes the ECB has under its belt. In that context, we think longer-dated rates struggle to break above the top of their recent range, which roughly sits at 2.54% for 10Y Bund and 3.16% for 10Y swaps against 6m Euribor.
In light of the current lack of direction in financial markets, these levels may seem difficult to achieve, but the pre-ECB and Federal Reserve meeting lull is proving a fruitful time for primary market activity. On the sovereign side, Spain and France announced deals yesterday which we think will add to other deals in pushing yields up today.
Taking a step back, May has seen issuance volumes above historical averages every single week as opportunistic borrowers used this window of calm to push deals. We don't think this week will be any different. This shouldn’t be mistaken for a conviction macro trade, but we think the benign market conditions should continue to result in higher bond yields and weaker safe havens as investors feel more comfortable with owning riskier alternatives.
Big debate on direction from the US. We look for upward pressure on yields for now
In the US, there is a stark juxtaposition between strong ongoing payroll growth versus PMIs and ISMs entering recessionary territory (low 40s for some components of the manufacturing PMI). On the inflation front, there is evidence of more subdued pipeline pressure while core inflation remains elevated (in the area of 5%).
Our model for US "rates" pitches fair value at 6% when we take everything into account. That has drifted up from 5.75% in the past week or so. Relative to this, the funds rate (ceilling at 5.25%) is not too deviant from that. But longer tenor rates are quite low relative to the big figure of 6%, reflecting ongoing deep inversion of the curve.
While there are some good reasons to expect market rates to fall (weak PMIs for example), our preferred expectation from here is to see some further upward pressure on market rates first. The 4% area for the 10yr Treasury yield for example remains a generic target that could well be hit in the coming month or so.
Today's events and market view
Today’s session should be relatively light on economic releases with only US trade standing out. Instead, we expect the focus to be on the Bank of Canada’s meeting in the afternoon. Consensus is for no change in policy rates but the surprise Reserve Bank of Australia hike yesterday, as well as a greater skew towards a hike in the most recent contributions to the Bloomberg survey, means markets are on high alert.
Bond supply will be concentrated in the 3Y sector with sales from the UK and Germany (a green bond in the latter’s case). Spain and France mandated banks for the sale of 10Y and 15Y linker bonds via syndication.
ECB speakers on the last day before the pre-meeting quiet period will be VP Luis de Guindos, Klass Knot, Fabio Panetta, and Boris Vujcic.
