Ramstad: Inflation jitters jump again as bond investors focus on rising U.S. deficit

We hardly got a chance to savor the moment.

It was only four weeks ago the Fed’s policymakers cut interest rates a half-point, signaling they believed inflation was under control, and already investors in bonds are betting that inflation is coming back. Some are speculating the government may have to get its fiscal house in order at last.

If these bond investors turn out to be right, it’s trouble for consumers who are just getting over the big price hikes of 2022 and people looking to borrow money soon for a home, car or other big purchase.

The residential real estate market, with affordability at a record low based on a measure by the Atlanta regional Fed, would be at risk of tightening up even more.

At first glance, some of the pessimism in the bond market is unsurprising. For instance, economic data since the Fed’s September meeting has come in strong, undercutting the need for policymakers to lower interest rates steadily to prevent a slowdown in the broader economy.

Meanwhile, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris propose spending increases and tax cuts that will drive up the need for government borrowing. Both also tout ideas that could reignite inflation, such as subsidizing first-time home buyers in Harris’ case and imposing tariffs on all imports in Trump’s.

Add to that the consumption pressure of retiring baby boomers. There are a lot of boomers and they have a lot of money, which will be an upward force on prices.

Even knowing all that, I’m surprised bond investors are sending such a strong signal about inflation so soon after the Fed cut rates.

When I went looking for an explanation, Biff Robillard, president at Bannerstone Capital Management in Minnetonka, warned me against chronocentrism, or the belief that what’s happening now is more important or different than the past or future.

America today may be where it was in the 1950′s, he said. That sounds like a good thing. The TV show “Happy Days” and movies like “Grease” in the 1970s burned the idea into Americans’ brains that the 1950′s were a period of carefree growth.

Actually, the Great Depression was still fresh enough that people in the 1950s were worried about economic downturns and hesitant to invest.

“Most people in 1953 were either saving money because they were afraid of the stock market or building a bomb shelter because they thought we’d have to go to war sometime,” Robillard said.

Today, investors are still adjusting to the end of the long bull run in bonds that began in the 1980s, nearly four decades of falling inflation, falling interest rates and rising bond prices.

“The question before us is: what does the end of the bull market in the bond market look like?” Robillard said.

The fear is that it looks like the 1950s, which was the start of 30 years or so of a bear market in bonds. “What today’s investors are worried about is, am I going to get caught in a bond bear market?” Robillard said. “What we’re seeing is people exchanging their wagers by the minute.”

Famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller in a couple of media appearances this month said he is shorting U.S. bonds, betting on a return of inflation and interest rates higher than we became used to in the 2010s.

“We shorted bonds the day the Fed cut 50 because we thought it was a mistake,” Druckenmiller told Bloomberg News last week, referring to cut in the Fed’s key rate of a half-percentage point.

Another billionaire investor, Paul Tudor Jones, told CNBC yesterday he believes a reckoning over the U.S. government’s borrowing is near and will push bond prices lower and rates higher. The U.S. government’s debt is now just under $36 trillion, and it takes in $5 trillion in revenue each year while spending nearly $7 trillion.

“We owe seven times what our tax take is this year,” Jones said. “Our deficit is $2 trillion, and it’s $2 trillion [per year] as far as the eye can see.”

Jones raised the specter of a “Minsky moment,” that turning point when markets collapse as investors recognize a situation as no longer sustainable. “I’m not going to own any fixed income,” he said, a reference to bonds.

This market turmoil will test the winner of the presidential race in two weeks. Harris and Trump campaigned on ideas and proposals in reaction to consumer upset about the inflation of 2022 and 2023. Now, bond prices show that the investors who fund government deficits are warning not just about the persistence of inflation, but the nation’s long-term debt.

“This is the nature of checks and balances with government. Not surprisingly given my line of work, I think the government spends a lot of money and borrows a lot of money to do it and it never seems to get better no matter what party you vote for,” Robillard said. “Penalties associated with economic anxiety in society is a good thing.”