JPMorgan joins chorus of banks cutting Treasury yield forecasts

(Bloomberg) — Another day, and another one of Wall Street’s biggest banks cuts its Treasury yield forecasts.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts led by Alex Roever joined a growing chorus of banks to pare year-end projections for the 10-year note yield, trimming their estimate to 1.9 percent from 2.15 percent. That’s because investors expect a slower pace of U.S. economic growth than they did last year, Treasury yields are more sensitive to global monetary easing and investors don’t want to take much risk by betting on Federal Reserve tightening, the analysts said.

Their call still would require yields to climb 16 basis points from current levels, which would indicate about a 0.3 percent loss in 10-year debt by the end of the year. Benchmark yields rose four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 1.74 percent on Monday as of 11:17 a.m. in New York, the biggest advance in nearly a month. A rise in oil prices was the catalyst for the declines, according to a Monday note from BMO Capital Markets analysts.

Strategists across Wall Street have been paring back 2016 calls on benchmark Treasury yields, as expectations for global economic growth decline and central banks in Europe and Asia introduce additional policy easing. Since the end of last year, the median 10-year yield estimate from 66 strategists polled by Bloomberg has dropped to 1.9 percent from 2.55 percent.

Even as the JPMorgan strategists cut their year-end yield forecasts, they expect Treasuries to fall in the near term and recommend clients bet on declines in the five-year note. The yield on that security rose three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 1.24 percent.

Fed View

The decision wasn’t tied to any changes in the bank’s views on Fed interest-rate policy. JPMorgan’s economists still forecast officials will raise their benchmark interest rate twice this year. Roever and other strategists at the bank compared the call with the “conundrum” experienced by Alan Greenspan during his tenure as Fed chairman.

“Is it a contradiction in terms to look for higher Fed funds rates, but still-low long-term rates? Perhaps, but there are precedents,” the analysts wrote in a May 13 note to clients. Fed Chair Janet Yellen “has a conundrum also, although hers is more challenging given the conditions of the rest of the developed markets. Still, challenging doesn’t mean impossible.” The chances traders assign an interest-rate increase by the end of this year rose to 55 percent Monday, up from 47 percent on Friday, according to overnight-indexed swaps data compiled by Bloomberg.