bearfund

Report from the Bond War Frontlines

The most interesting bond ETFs on the market are PST and TBT. They offer a convenient way to get long exposure to profligacy, pandering, fraud, political incompetence, and central bank indiscipline. That combination of exposure in a single product is hard to beat. Most of the ETFs you mention have short exposure to these. I do not understand why anyone would want them.

Searching for the Best Bond ETF

"Less clear of course is what specifically it will cost an investor to own a piece of this vast market and what that debt is worth in terms of some other asset (such as euro debt or gold)..."

Or, say, the goods and services you typically buy - rent, food, fuel, electricity, water, clothing, etc. The bond market is obsessed with the "quality" of Treasuries - the certainty, as you point out, that there is no default risk. So what? If you hold an Argentine bond and the Kirchners default on it, how much bread can you buy with the total coupon + principal payments you received? If you hold a Treasury bond paying 4% while prices are rising 12%, how much bread can you buy with that? What if that 12% becomes 20%? That's all that matters: purchasing power. The certainty that you'll get your $1000 back 30 years from now is irrelevant. What will it be worth?

The market has forced real interest rates on even very long-duration debt deeply into negative territory. It's hard to imagine being sufficiently bearish on the world economy that one would be willing to eat 7% a year in lost coupon purchasing power and the substantial risk of capital loss just to avoid finding something better to do with the money. Buying toilet paper would be a better choice; you'll always need it and it isn't getting cheaper.

Long PST and TBT. Long gold. Other short Treasury positions.