(Bloomberg) -- The 30-year-old bull market in bonds looks to be ending with a bang.
The Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Total Return Index lost 4 percent in November, the deepest slump since the gauge's inception in 1990. Treasuries extended declines Thursday along with European bonds on speculation that the European Central Bank will consider sending a signal that stimulus will eventually end. The reflation trade has been driving markets since Donald Trump's election victory due to his promises of tax cuts and $1 trillion in infrastructure spending.
Calling an end to the three-decade bond bull market is no longer looking like a fool's errand: the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again -- and do so more often than once a year, inflationary expectations are climbing and there are hints global central banks may buy less sovereign debt going forward. Investors pulled $10.7 billion from U.S. bond funds in the two weeks after Trump's victory, the biggest exodus since 2013's “taper tantrum,” while American stock indexes jumped to records.
“The market has moved with remarkable swiftness to price in the anticipated reflationary impact of a Trump administration,” said Matthew Cairns, a strategist at Rabobank International in London. “This has, in turn, prompted a notable rotation out of fixed income and into equities.”
Still, Cairns cautioned the moves are “remarkable given the distinct lack of clarity as regards what policies the president-elect will actually pursue.”
November's rout wiped a record $1.7 trillion from the global index's value in a month that saw world equity markets' capitalization climb $635 billion.
The yield on 10-year U.S. notes rose 56 basis points in November, the biggest jump since 2009, and was at 2.44 percent as of about 4 p.m. in New York, after reaching the highest since June 2015.
The average yield on the Bloomberg Barclays Global gauge climbed to 1.61 percent on Nov. 23, after touching a record low of 1.07 percent on July 5.
“A lot of people are beginning to think that it is the end of the bull rally,” said Roger Bridges, chief global strategist for interest rates and currencies in Sydney at Nikko Asset Management's Australia unit, which oversees $14 billion. U.S. 10-year yields may rise to 2.7 percent in January, Bridges said.
Read More: Few bond investors are seeing an end to the rout
The rise in yields shows the limitations of the quantitative easing policies at the biggest central banks, Bridges said. Bonds will be especially vulnerable if the European Central Bank discusses reducing its debt-purchase program at its Dec. 8 meeting, he said.
The yield on German 10-year bunds climbed nine basis points to 0.37 percent Thursday.
--With assistance from Wes Goodman To contact the reporters on this story: Garfield Reynolds in Sydney at greynolds1@bloomberg.net, Anooja Debnath in London at adebnath@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Goodman at dgoodman28@bloomberg.net, Keith Jenkins
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