The world’s leading economies would have a change in the amount of debt needed to be re-financed in 2016 unlike last year, as nations are making efforts in reducing the amount of deficit in their budgets to a third of the highs seen during the financial crisis. Eight out of 11 countries will see bonds and bills redemption fall.
The amount of maturing debt has gradually fallen since Bloomberg began collating the data in 2012. The decline may bring some support to the bond market as the U.S. Federal Reserve gradually raises interest rates, pushing yields up from record lows.
The value of bills, notes and bonds coming due for the Group-of-Seven nations plus Brazil, China, India and Russia will total $7.1 trillion, compared with $7 trillion in 2015 and down from $7.6 trillion in 2012.
Japan, Germany, Italy and Canada will all see redemption fall, while the U.S., China and the U.K. face increases, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Russia and Brazil will see the biggest proportional declines in debt redemptions, with securities coming due tumbling by 38% and 26%, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Including interest payments, the amount of debt that needs to be refinanced by the G-7 and BRIC nations will total $7.8 trillion this year, also little changed from 2015.
While the decline shows there’s less pressure on governments to borrow, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will issue less — that depends on their overall funding requirements. Germany plans to boost its bond and bill sales to 203 billion euros ($221 billion) this year from about 175 billion euros in 2015, partly to finance expenses caused by a record influx of migrants.
Budget deficits are forecast by economists to narrow for a seventh straight year in 2016 as governments extend the maturity of their outstanding debt and continue to cut back on the extra spending put in place to combat the global financial meltdown.
According to Bank of America, Government bonds eked out a 1.2 % gain for investors in 2015, compared with 8.4 % in 2014 and an average 4.4 % return over the past five years. Merrill Lynch indexes. Yields, which move inversely to prices, are now starting to rise as the fallout from recession fades, reducing demand for the securities as a haven, and as the U.S. central bank predicts four rate increases before the year is out.
U.S. 10-year treasury yields will climb to 2.75 % by the end of 2016, according to the median forecast of 65 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, from 2.23 %. In the U.S., the world’s largest debtor nation with $13.1 trillion of marketable debt obligations, the amount of government securities coming due will rise 14 per cent from last year to $3.5 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. China faces the biggest percentage increase in refinancing needs in 2016, with a 41 per cent jump to $254 billion.
According to David Schnautz a London-based fixed-income strategist at Commerzbank AG in London, “Yields will rise and the Fed’s tightening will spill over into other bonds,” he went further by saying, “At least the reduced pressure to borrow will be a nice offsetting factor. There’s also a lot of structural demand out there still and that will limit the upside for bond yields.”
This may prompt investors to demand more compensation to hold other bonds, too, including those from countries such as Germany and Japan, where yields are currently being kept down by their central banks expanding the money supply through debt purchases. The average sovereign yield in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Government Index climbed to 1.1 %, from an all-time low of 0.82 % reached in January last year.
The drop in bond redemptions across most of the world’s leading economies, plus quantitative-easing programs and subdued inflation will continue to underpin demand for government bonds, even as higher U.S. interest rates put upward pressure on yields, according to Rabobank International.
Slower inflation boosts the appeal of the fixed payments that bonds offer. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimate consumer prices in developed countries rose just 0.5% in 2015, a fraction of the 3.5% increase in 2008.
Budget deficits across the developed world will shrink to an average 2.4% of gross domestic product this year, economists predicts, from an estimated 2.6% in 2015 and a peak of 7.2% in 2009.
