Building a market for the next generation: EU bonds to spearhead a greener and more unified Europe

Deep Dive into fixed income

2020 was a challenging year for European bond investors, but an attempt by the European Central Bank (ECB) to stimulate an economic recovery in Europe has provided cause for optimism.

The bond market sell-off witnessed in March 2020 saw yields rise to all-time highs for some asset classes. Since then, the amount of negative yielding debt had been steadily on the rise, hitting a new decade high of $18.4trn in December 2020, before ending January 2021 at $16.8trn. During the period of rising negative yielding debt, central banks massively expanded or reignited their quantitative easing programmes. Looking specifically at European sovereign bonds, the general picture was very similar with yields falling from the peak seen in March 2020.  The first quarter of 2020 s...