Gold Still Attractive As The Bond Selloff Looks Overdone

Government bond yields have been rising steadily for the past three months, but they went parabolic in February, surging over 31%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury touched 1.6% last Thursday, up from 0.9% just a couple of months ago. That’s more than a two standard deviation move, suggesting the bond selloff may be overdone. Remember, bond yields rise as prices fall.

Yields have jumped so much, in fact, that they’re giving stocks a serious run for their money. The 10-year yield is now higher than the S&P 500 dividend yield, which may have added to the selling pressure that cost stocks close to 2.5% yesterday.

It’s important to recognize the reasons why yields are rising. In an email to clients on Friday, Evercore ISI analysts explained that the move is “associated with the higher inflation expectations” and that investors are pricing in “a positive economic skew.”

In other words, as expectations of a strong economic recovery mount—assisted by trillions in fiscal stimulus, loose monetary policy forever and hopes of herd immunity by summer—so do expectations for higher inflation.

Despite what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says, prices for a lot of assets are far from “soft” and likely to continue rising as more and more liquidity is pumped into the economy.  

Interest rates were slashed to near-zero last April, and since then commodities have increased about 45%, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodities Index. But they’re not done yet. I believe we’re just one big infrastructure spending package away from a full-blown commodities supercycle.

With Real Yields at or Below 0%, Is It Time to Buy the Dip in Gold?

Gold participated in the rally, hitting a new high in August, but since then it’s been stuck in a downtrend. The metal, which has the highest weighting in the commodities index at more than 13%, is being clobbered right now by rising yields. On Friday it fell further to an eight-month low.

   When it comes to trading gold, I think what’s important for investors to pay attention to is not so much nominal yields but real yields. Right now the 10-year bond is trading with a yield of 1.4%, which is the exact same rate that consumer prices rose at in January year-over-year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So in reality, inflation is eating your lunch even with the yield increase.

I expect gold to catch a bid when consumer prices really start to turn up on additional stimulus. Until then, I see now as an attractive time to buy.

Record Low Savings Account Yield

Plus, you’re not gaining anything by leaving your money in the bank, and I mean that literally.

The average yield for a personal savings account fell to a new all-time low in February, according to an index by DepositAccounts. How low? Try 0.49%, which doesn’t come anywhere close to matching inflation, to say nothing of beating it.

Low interest rates tell only a part of the story of why this is happening. The other part is that Americans are squirreling away their money like never before, putting pressure on savings account yields. At the end of 2020, U.S. banks held a record $17.8 trillion in deposits, up significantly from $14.5 trillion a year earlier, as people were stuck at home with fresh $1,200 stimulus checks.

Here’s another way to look at it. The chart below shows you personal saving as a percentage of disposable income. You can see that the rate skyrocketed to 33% at the beginning of the pandemic, and though it’s tapered somewhat, it surged again in January thanks to the second round of stimulus.

Granted, not all of this money is sitting in a bank, but a lot of it is, and it’s earning nothing.

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