The US government bond market is suffering its worst month since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, as high inflation pushes the Federal Reserve to aggressively pull back monetary stimulus for the economy.
Falling bond prices have lifted the benchmark 10-year yield 0.44 percentage points in March to 2.27 per cent, its highest level since May 2019. A rise in yields of that magnitude was last registered in November 2016.
Then, Treasury yields rose on the back of expectations of a bump in US economic growth. Now the trigger is persistently strong inflation readings, fuelled over the past month by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its potential to constrain the supply of oil and other key commodities.