10-year government bond yields in some countries, including Germany, Japan and Switzerland have been negative at various times in recent years. In 2015, over $ trillion of sovereign paper had negative yields. For the past decade, the yield structure in the US has been lower than at any time previously.
Let me put in context the current excitement about the 10-year yield in the US reaching 3 per cent. In the three decades prior to 2007, the low point for the yield was 3.11 per cent. All this goes to say that we have been living in a period of unusually low nominal bond yields. How long will this period last?