Long-dated Treasuries fell on Monday as investor attention turned to the US’ ballooning debt after Moody’s Ratings stripped the nation of its last top credit rating.
The 30-year yield rose as much as eight basis points to 5.02%, the highest since November 2023. The benchmark 10-year rate climbed seven basis points to 4.55%. The dollar fell against all of its Group-of-10 peers, with the euro surging over 1% to $1.1284.
Moody’s announced Friday evening it was downgrading the US to Aa1 from Aaa, reinforcing Wall Street’s growing worries over the nation’s fiscal outlook as Capitol Hill debates even more unfunded tax cuts. The company, which trailed rivals, blamed successive presidents and congressional lawmakers for a ballooning budget deficit it said showed little sign of narrowing. “I wouldn’t over emphasize the importance of this downgrade – but it adds to the ‘de-dollarization’ theme that was already in place,” said Jordan Rochester, head of macro strategy for EMEA at Mizuho International Plc.
Angst around government spending is likely to remain a focus for investors around the world, with fiscal strains evident in nations from Japan to the UK. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said the country’s financial conditions are worse than Greece’s on Monday, and even historically austere Germany is set to dramatically ramp up spending. The latest downgrade was anticipated by many given it came when the US federal budget deficit is running near $2 trillion a year, or more than 6% of gross domestic product. The government is also on track to surpass record debt levels set after World War II, reaching 107% of GDP by 2029, the Congressional Budget Office warned in January. “We view this latest credit action as a headline risk rather than a fundamental shift for markets,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management. “While the downgrade may lean against some of the recent ‘good news’ momentum, we do not expect it to have a major direct impact on financial markets.” “The synchronized selling of USD, Treasuries and US stocks highlight the growing loss of confidence in the US economy,” Elias Haddad, a currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. wrote in a note. A key US House committee on Sunday advanced Trump’s giant tax and spending package after Republican hardliners won agreement from party leaders to speed up cuts to Medicaid health coverage. Mizuho’s Rochester adds this was also weighing on US Treasuries on Monday.
Moody’s said it expects “federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.”