Rising Treasury yields helped provoke a frenzy of trading in a popular bond exchange-traded fund this week as dip buyers battled with bears on the cusp of a critical threshold for markets.
Heavy trading continued on Friday, leaving open the possibility that the total number of shares traded this week could exceed the previous record from earlier this month, when more than 270.9 million shares moved during the week ended Oct. 6, Dow Jones data show. The ETF was launched back in 2002. While some on Wall Street expect yields to keep on climbing, many have stepped up to buy bonds during the latest selloff. According to FactSet, TLT has seen roughly $18 billion of inflows so far this year, while more than $900 million flowed into the fund during the month of September, the fastest pace this year, according to FactSet data.
The 10-year yield traded close to 5% on Thursday, a level that has become one of Wall Street’s latest obsessions. Investors in both bonds and stocks are keeping a close eye on where the 10-year yield might be headed based on the notion that yields above 5% could heap more pressure on corporations and the U.S. economy.Rising Treasury yields spurred losses across the U.S. bond market, saddling ETF investors with heavy losses. TLT, as well as two popular corporate-bond ETFs, the iShares Core U.S.