$1.5 Trillion In Debt Trading At Negative Yields

In theory, fixed income is supposed to give investors an easy way to get decent yields without putting their principal at too much risk. But now that logic doesn’t apply when many governments, institutions, and even some corporations are literally being paid to borrow because of negative yields. And what was unthinking a few years ago now makes up $1.5 trillion in dollar-equivalent debt trades according to Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Sheets.

“The last 250 years have seen depression, war, pandemics, deflation, inflation and a host of other ills. These have never justified negative yields for a meaningful amount of time. Maybe this time is different – the difference being that you now need to justify current pricing,” he...