德银CIO：美债实际收益率创25年新高，财政赤字是主因

Westin: This is a story about what's around the corner. Interest rates have crept up in recent weeks with uncertainty over future Fed cuts, concerns about inflation and record borrowing in the public and private markets, with both governments and companies rushing to invest in artificial intelligence. Loaning money at higher rates sounds good, provided you can see around that corner to make sure you'll get paid back.

David Bianco is Chief Investment Officer for the Americas at DWS Group, which has about one trillion dollars in assets under management. So, David, this summer we have seen sort of a gradual rise in yields, maybe across the curve, but particularly on the long end of the curve. What's causing that? -This summer, longer end of the curve, Treasury bonds and notes, the yields have been rising. And we've noticed during the summer that yields, and especially real yields, have gotten to some of the highest levels they've been in nearly 25 years since before the financial crisis of 2008-9.

There are a bunch of causes to it. This has been playing out over some time. So you're saying, yes, it's been a gradual rise in yields, but we've gotten to the point where a lot of people turn around and say, "What happened here? "These are really high interest rates, "high real interest rates. "What's happened?" What I think is interesting to note is that even though topics like inflation, which remains above the Fed's target for more than 5 years, that's important.

And there's a lot of future inflation uncertainty. And we always talk about things like employment and growth. That to me isn't the main reason why yields have climbed to these levels and to new highs in the past 25 years this summer. The main reason that real interest rates are so high is secular nature. And it is the deficit. It is the government debt to GDP, the deficit above 6% of GDP likely to stay that way for a long time.

And importantly, how that deficit needs to be funded. It needs to be funded more domestically. We have a new world trade order. We buy less of China's things. They buy far less of our bonds. But also Europe, Japan, they're running deficits. Japan has inflation. They'll probably be raising their interest rates further. And even in Germany, my colleagues at Deutsche Bank, you know, even the Germans are Keynesians now. A lot of fiscal deficit spending.

Westin: When we think about the yield on Treasuries, we tend to focus on the Fed, even as they meet in Jackson Hole this week. But we had the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Bessent, last week, sort of get in the game, it felt like. -Got in the game, yeah. Westin: With his move that appeared to be directed toward the long end. What do you make of that? It's ironic to me, at least, that after we'd had Kevin Warsh say, "Pay attention to the ball, not the referee," we had the referee in the form of the Treasury Secretary jump in the game. -Oh, you're reading my mind.

I was thinking the same thing. Exactly. Now, there are a lot of things that I admire and respect about Treasury Secretary Bessent. Really energized Treasury Secretary, a lot of great ideas and targets. One of my favorite things is the 3-3-3. Let's get real GDP growth to 3%. Let's get the deficit down to 3%. That'll be hard from over 6. Increase more oil production. Those are great ways to really bring this problem to control.

But this particular idea, I don't like at all. I don't think it's going to work. Maybe our Treasury Secretary is, you know, taking-- inspired by our president to jawbone the market and tell the market what it wants to hear. But I don't think-- it would take a lot more money than they've talked about to drive longer term Treasury yields down. And it's inappropriate for the Treasury Department to do that when that's monetary policy.

The Fed should be doing it. And it just it causes people to be suspicious about conspiracies or-- or people are saying debasement or financial repression. This gets investors concerned that, what are they up to? And it can threaten the value of the dollar exchange rates. You see gold prices go up. Investors look for real inflation protected type of assets. That's not a good thing when people are worried about long term issues like the deficit.

I think he's just really being more vocal and little is likely to occur. But this is why a lot more people are suspicious about the issue. And as you said, just when we were encouraged to pay attention to the ball, not the referee. Some of us are asking, "Well, who's really in charge here? "Who's the main referee?" It's still the Fed. And it'd be best that those type of decisions, managing the shape of the curve, be left to the Fed.

Westin: Even as we watch these yields gradually grind higher, the stock market seems to not be worried about it at all, at least thus far. Huge earnings probably help on that. But at what point does the stock market get affected by the yields? -So the U.S. stock market, I've said for a whole career, is just not the same thing as the U.S. economy. Certain challenges that the U.S. economy has, like our fiscal situation, is just not necessarily a problem for corporate America, which is doing very well, especially the technology companies.

The climbing yields, though, does become a cost of capital and it competes with equity investments to some degree, particularly if the 10 year Treasury yield got to 4.75 percent. If it stays there in that range or goes higher, it starts likely encouraging investors to move from bond substitutes, staples, REITs, telecom companies, and maybe just buy bonds and get a similar return. Although they're always still looking for inflation protection, which is one of the things that equities does provide.

I would say to you, I think the sector least at risk to underperforming owing to higher yields is actually tech, because we're not debating the cost of capital around building these data centers. We're debating the return on capital. And if the cost of capital is plus or minus 50 basis points, that's not going to determine whether this is a, you know, good use of capital. And I believe it will be. And there'll be high single digit returns on those data center investments over time.

Westin: Secretary of Investments former mentor Stan Druckenmiller wrote an essay this week in Wall Street Journal saying, "Listen to the bond market, "the bond market will decide this." When it comes to fiscal discipline, that starts to think like bond vigilantes. But as long as we have the reserve currency, is there a real discipline on the U.S. borrowing as opposed to Germany or the U.K. or Japan? -Well, listen to the bond market, but also listen to Stan.

He's "Stan the Man" for a reason. People like myself respect him tremendously. When he speaks, pay attention. I agree with essentially everything he said in his opinion piece. The U.S. is a reserve currency in the sense that it's the currency that gives access to so many dollar-based assets, whether it be Treasuries or U.S. real estate or wonderful U.S. equities. And this is the reason why the U.S. can get away, exorbitant privilege, with borrowing more at generally more attractive rates than other countries.

But at a time when the world is less cooperative with each other, from real conflict to trade conflicts to high deficits here and other parts of the world, an inflation problem here, hopefully the worst is behind and still in other parts of the world, the developed world, Stan's absolutely right. We shouldn't be interfering with price signals, and the price signal says "be careful." And that's the reason why I don't think it's a good idea for the Treasury to intervene with the long term Treasury bond market.

Westin: Our special contributor, Chrystia Freeland, spoke about America's fiscal crisis with Robin Brooks, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and with Sigrid Kaag, the former finance minister of the Netherlands. Both said that the U.S. is on a dangerous course, but