The canary in the coal mine is singing as global bond selloff raises national debt concerns

The Fed question

Eleanor Pringle is an award-winning

As traders head into the final leg of 2025 they are not doing so with overconfidence. In fact, if this week’s bond market is anything to go

U.S. 30-year Treasuries will open a breath away from 5% today, one of their highest levels this year, following a sharp uptick since the end of last month. While yields pushing higher is one sign of a selloff, another is trading activity. That too has ticked up, increasing approximately 19% year-on-year at the end of August according to securities experts Sifma.

But the upset isn’t confined to America alone. In Europe, French government bonds—Obligations Assimilables du Trésor or OATs—similarly spiked toward a 5% yield and sit at 4.49% at the time of writing, marking its highest run since 2009.

The U.K. is arguably feeling the sharpest end of the issue, with 30-year gilts pushing above 5.7%, their highest level since the spring of 1998.

Meanwhile, gold, the safe haven asset in times of economic upheaval, has hit a record price of $3,537.

One reason investors are drawing back from government debt is concerns over its sustainability. For years economists have been nervously watching the debt-to-GDP ratios of developed economies tip further out of balance, meaning nations aren’t generating the growth to keep up with the borrowing they have financed.

If that ratio tips too far out of balance, or if investors see no signs of governments addressing the issue, experts fear there will be a flight from government securities as buyers demand higher yield premiums in return for their debt purchases. This could prompt a range of outcomes, with either central banks forced to step in to ease money supply or political pressure mounting to the point of significant cost cutting.

Investors won’t be cajoled

Deutsche Bank noted to clients this morning that the French deficit running at 5.6–5.8% of GDP in 2025, above the official 5.4% target, which is fueling concerns around debt sustainability. Likewise in the U.K., Deutsche’s Jim Reid noted that the government has a £20–£25 billion budget gap to fill

The

“Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the search for Powell’s successor as Fed Chair is already underway … In comments to

With Bessent and Trump continuing to pressure the Fed for lower interest rates—and with economic data suggesting this may soon be appropriate—treasury yields on the shorter end are lowering in anticipation of cheaper borrowing.

5 year yields, for example, are at 3.74% down significantly from earlier this year when they sat at more than 4.6%.

Goldman Sachs noted the widening of the gap between short and long term yields, writing to clients Friday: “Despite relative stability at the very front-end of the U.S. curve, cut pricing in 2026 has continued to build alongside a rise in risk premium at the long-end.”

Oxford Economics’s John Canavan echoed in a note yesterday: “Supply pressures also argue for continued upward pressure on term premiums. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has suggested the Treasury avoid increasing the size of long-end Treasury issuance unless rates move lower, but the Treasury still needs to raise much more than is maturing for the 10-year and bond auction cycles each month, even if the auction sizes remain steady.

“Market participants might be taking some comfort in a recent Congressional Budget Office forecast that the increase in tariffs will reduce deficits over the next 10 years