But it is when the proverbial clock strikes midnight that is the multi-trillion- dollar question for bond investors.
A massive tide of bond issues the US and other major governments are making to finance the rescue of the global banking system and to fund economic stimulus packages will ultimately overwhelm these markets, sending yields spiking up as swelling supply cheapens prices.
"The iron law of fiscal expansion means government issuance cannot be revised down. The bonds will be sold, the question is at what price," said UBS rates strategist Meyrick Chapman in London.
Timing is everything for fund managers still betting government debt yields can go lower, or for those temporarily hiding out in those markets and waiting for treacherous selloffs in corporate debt and stocks to abate.
Once the crisis eases, allowing lending to flow more smoothly among banks and corporate debt markets and the global economy shows signs of bottoming out, investors could desert government debt in droves, triggering a vicious selloff.
"Somewhere along the line, and I am not smart enough to tell you when, some of this massive amount of money will start moving back into other types of instruments," said Leonard Santow, managing director of economic and financial consultantcy Griggs & Santow and a former financial economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve.
"Come on: three basis points on Treasury bills," said Santow. "If that's the way things are forever, we have real problems. So somewhere here, whether it's three months or six months away, those rates will start to be more normal.
"That will obviously push rates up along the curve to something half-way reasonable," he said.
While the three-month Treasury bill rate has fallen to near zero, as panicked investors flee equity markets for the shelter of ultra short-dated government instruments, the benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield slipped last week just below 2.99 percent, the lowest in five decades.
But a year from now the 10-year note's yield will have jumped to between 4.25 percent and 4.75 percent, Santow estimates.
"A very strong case can be made that Treasury rates will have to go up," as issuance inundates the pool of US$4.9 trillion (HK$38.22 trillion) Treasury securities outstanding, Santow says.
He expects between US$1.75 trillion and US$2 trillion of US government debt supply in the rest of this fiscal year to next September, with between US$600 billion and US$700 billion in Treasury bills; the rest in notes and bonds. In the eurozone, sovereign debt issuance is likely to run to at least 700 billion euros (HK$6.88 trillion) next year.
In the UK, the Debt Management Office plans to increase sales of gilts to a record 146 billion pounds (HK$1.74 trillion) in this financial year.
Ironically the eventual trigger for a selloff that will plunge major governments and corporate borrowers deeper into debt may be signs that today's bailouts costing trillions of dollars are starting to succeed in refloating the global economy.
For now, rising US government supply "can be absorbed fairly well," said Derrick Wulf, portfolio manager at Dwight Asset Management in Vermont. The danger of corporate debt "crowding out" treasuries will be limited, Wulf says.
Yet he is starting to hedge against the risk that Treasury prices could drop once the economy starts to show signs of life.
"You buy risk assets. Now is as good a time as any. Some of them are providing equity-like returns," Wulf said, although he is buying corporate bonds cautiously.
Though deflationary pressures are now taking hold across the world as commodity prices fall, bond analysts do worry that the dramatic expansion of debt issuance may later rekindle inflation, which is anathema for bonds.
Excessive borrowing by the private sector expanded the debt pool of mortgage and corporate paper so much that these bubbles burst dramatically, causing the worst credit crisis in a generation. Now governments could be making the same mistake of borrowing too much, analysts worry.
Once US note and bond yields do start to jump, the move could be swift, warns Santow. "That of course will substantially add to the interest on the public debt and it's a real problem if you are trying to get the economy to recover," he said.
The US 10-year Treasury note's yield is a critical consideration, since this benchmark largely determines the rates at which 30-year fixed rate mortgages, a key driver of demand in the beleaguered housing market, are set.
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