Inversions and aversions

摘要

ON MARCH 22ND Germany's worst manufacturing survey in seven years sent investors rushing to buy bonds. For the first time in three years yields on German ten-year government debt fell below zero, meaning that investors are willing to pay to hold it. And later that day in America the yield on ten-year Treasury bonds fell beneath that on the three-month variety. The last time that happened was 2007, one of the "inversions" in bond-market yields that preceded each of the past seven American recessions.