Vanguard Total International Bond ETF

BNDX

Börsenwert 83,5 Mrd. $

Bonds are paying the best yields in years and still dragging portfolios into the red, leaving investors scrambling for a defensive asset that actually defends. A growing group of Wall Street managers thinks the answer involves shorting Treasuries outright.

U.S. bond yields are rising, providing an increasingly attractive alternative to pricey stocks. Trump's unorthodox policy may be causing this trend to accelerate.

The global competition for capital remains the key dynamic keeping yields elevated. Notably, all of the September increase in 10-year Treasury yields came from real yields, as implied by the TIPS market.

US Treasuries resumed their retreat, lifting the 30-year yield back to its highest since 2002 as climbing oil prices raised concern about faster inflation and more central bank interest-rate increases. Vishal Khanduja, Head of Broad Markets Fixed Income at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, discusses credit spreads and whether or not yields will soon peak.

Japan, Europe, and the U.S. were feeling the fallout from France, where yields on its benchmark 10-year note climbed closer to 5%, the highest since 2002.

Asian market opened the week firmer on Monday as a sharp slowdown in US hiring pushed investors towards a Federal Reserve pause this month, giving rate-sensitive technology stocks room to rebound. Japan led the advance, with the Nikkei 225 jumping 2.5% above 70,000 to a three-month high, while Taiwan's Taiex gained about 2.6%.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

The Vanguard Total International Bond ETF offers a currency-hedged, low-cost way to access developed market bonds with high credit quality and low volatility. BNDX is positioned to benefit from dovish repricing of ECB and BoE rate hike expectations, while US rates remain stable and hedging costs manageable. Technical signals indicate price stabilization near 52-week lows, supporting a gradual, tranche-based long position-building strategy.

The Vanguard Total International Bond ETF offers broad, investment-grade foreign bond exposure, hedged to USD, with a low 0.07% expense ratio. I rate BNDX a Hold, as its 3.8% SEC yield does not adequately compensate for its 6.5-year duration risk versus U.S. bond alternatives. BNDX excels as a diversification tool for U.S.-centric portfolios, mitigating domestic interest-rate cycle risk without introducing significant currency exposure.

US Treasuries rebounded from the global bond selloff that raced through European markets on Thursday, pulling 10-year yields back from a 24-year high. Bloomberg's Ira Jersey joins to discuss.