It’s a good time to buy inflation-protected Treasury debt after yields on the benchmark exceeded 2%, according to strategists at Wells Fargo & Co.
The US bank’s Angelo Manolatos and Mike Schumacher recommend buying 10-year TIPS at a real yield of 2%, targeting 1.7% over the next two to three months with a stop at 2.15%, they wrote in a Monday note. Yields on these securities pushed above 2% for the first time since 2009 on Monday.
This is “our top choice for going long duration,” they wrote. “The Federal Reserve is either done hiking or will do only another 25bps, in our view.”
Wells Fargo found that 10-year real yields dropped by an average of 26 basis points in the three months following the final hike of the Fed’s three most-recent cycles — in 2000, 2006, and 2018 — and that yields fell 39 bps when looking at a six-month period.
Potential catalysts for Treasury gains through the end of August include revisions to payrolls data set to be released this week, a 30-year TIPS auction on Thursday, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments at Jackson Hole, the analysts said.
“Our economists see a risk that Powell emphasizes the need to reduce nominal rates as inflation recedes,” they added. “This emphasis likely would lead watchers to conclude that policy is near a dovish turn.”
