These are treacherous times for bond traders. A couple of months ago, the market consensus was that the US Federal Reserve would cut interest rates six times this year, starting imminently. By Wednesday, however, investors had slashed their expectations so dramatically that many now expect cuts to be delayed to November. Indeed, a slew of higher-than-expected inflation data prompted Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, to warn that the next move might even be up — not down.
Cue hand-wringing from those sectors that have boomed amid ultra-low rates. (A fascinating new report from the IMF report suggests that private capital is one). And cue more speculation about whether expectations will change again this year.
But as this debate rages, it is worth stepping back for a moment to also think about the long sweep of our financial past. And no, I do not mean “history” as traders usually experience it on a trading screen — namely, the late 20th century — but instead, and more thought-provokingly, the past eight centuries. A trio of economists — Kenneth Rogoff, Barbara Rossi and Paul Schmelzing — have been amassing global data on interest rates and inflation since 1311, five decades after Venice started to issue so-called “consols”, arguably the first example of long-term sovereign debt.