On Aug. 5, 2011, financial markets as we know them were supposed to have ended. They didn’t then, but when will they?
The market closed on that first Friday in August and people went home for the weekend. Then, while some were asleep, Standard & Poor’s dropped the bomb on the market: The U.S. had been downgraded and lost its risk-free “AAA” status.
Fear, panic and calls for the end of the bond bubble ensued.
How high would the yield on the 10-year Treasury note go? How would the U.S. fund its deficits at astronomical rates? Would anybody be willing to buy Treasurys at historically low interest rates?
As we all now know, that moment proved to be one of the greatest contrarian indicators of all time.
Treasurys of all maturities began rising the following Monday. They didn’t stop climbing, and really haven’t stopped yet.
The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (NYSEArca: TLT), the long-dated Treasury portfolio, has returned more than 30 percent since that fateful Friday.
The Schwab Intermediate-Term U.S. Treasury ETF (NYSEArca: SCHR), Schwab’s intermediate Treasury portfolio, is up over 6 percent.
Of course, the performance of the short end of the curve has been relatively muted, but what do you expect when those securities are yielding next to nothing?
A Giant Among Midgets?
It’s the longer end of the curve where prices were most at risk from a reaction to the downgrade.
After all, these longer-duration bonds are by nature more sensitive to changes in interest rates and therefore had the farthest to fall. But the opposite happened: Prices rose, and substantially.
Of course none of this happened in a vacuum, either.
The European debt crisis gathered momentum in the beginning of the year, and took the euro, sovereign ratings in the eurozone and the ratings of European banks down with it.
The dollar and the “safest” dollar—denominated assets, U.S. Treasurys—were the logical alternative.
A Whiff Of Distrust
This was the springboard for bond prices, but it seems there was also something else at work: The market’s distrust of the ratings agencies.
After all, it was these same ratings agencies whose blind “AAA” ratings of mortgage-related collateralized debt obligations was a huge factor that helped trigger the loss of trillions of dollars in the fall of 2008.
It seems to me the U.S. downgrade failed to stir fear in financial markets because of the market’s distrust of rating agencies like S&P.
After their pay-for-rating business model was revealed and their conflicts of interest documented, it really is no surprise that the market met what was supposed to be a historic event with a collective yawn.
Sure, it made for great fodder on Fox News and MSNBC, but in the market, it proved to be a nonevent.
