Since mid-2024, tightening momentum of Bund swap spreads1 (that first started in Q4 2022) has gained traction, taking the 10Y Bund to trade from swap -35bp at the end of June to slightly positive vs. swaps in the first half of November, at a record cheap level since the EUR inceptions.
Over the last few days, the movement has partially retraced, with 10Y Bund yields coming back to trade at a small premium vs. swaps, but the current levels still remain extremely cheap historically.
In our view, two factors point to different spread dynamics compared to the past:
1) Current level of Bund swap spread dislocation at the long end compared to fundamentals is extreme.
Figure 1 shows that our fair value model2 has closely tracked the first leg of Bund swap spreads tightening from the end of 2022 to mid-2024 (which was mostly due to a sharp decline in systemic risk in the Euro area), but it has not been able to explain the cheapening of the 10Y Bund swap spreads since mid-2024, with residuals reaching unprecedented high levels compared to the past.
2) The swap spread curve is inverted, but differently from the past, in a context of Bunds cheapening vs. swaps
The recent cheapening of Bunds vs. swaps has been more pronounced at the long end of the curve, leading to an inversion of the swap spreads curve.
While the swap spread curve has been inverted before in the past (for instance between 2007 and 2013, in 2016 and 2017, Figure 2), during all the past episodes, Bunds were richening vs. swaps and more so at the short maturities, leading to an inversion of the swap spreads curve. During all these periods, the reason for the inversion of the swap spread curve was an increase in systematic stress (Great Financial Crisis, Eurozone debt crisis, 2017 French elections, bond sell-off in 2022), especially at the short-end of the curve (Figure 3). Scarcity of safe government paper also played a role, especially after ECB's PEPP. On the other hand, the recent inversion of the swap spreads curve happened in a context of a cheapening of Bunds vs. swaps that has been more pronounced at the long end of the curve.
1In this article, the swap spread is calculated as swap rate minus government bond yield. A tightening of the swap spread indicates a cheapening of government paper vs. swap.
2Our model regresses the 10Y Bund swap spread on 2Y Bund yields, the slope of the Bund curve, excess liquidity in the Eurosystem and the systemic stress in the Eurosystem. The model is regressed on monthly data starting from 1999 until the present.
Chiara Cremonesi
Senior Rates Strategist
Investment Research