IMF warns bond yields could see a 'disorderly' spike as debt, inflation risks worsen

BANGKOK – The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that government bond yields could rise in a disorderly fashion, as rising inflation, mounting debt and AI-related borrowings pressure sovereign bond markets.

Government bond yields in several advanced economies have climbed to multidecade highs, driven by higher energy costs due to the Middle East conflict and expectations for tighter monetary conditions as central banks look to curb resurgent inflation.

In its latest Global Financial Stability Report, the fund warned that sovereign bond risk could deteriorate, warning of "a sharp rise in sovereign bond yields." The report was released Tuesday as part of the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, Thailand, this week, where more than 18,000 delegates gathered to discuss the state of the world economy and the financial system.

High debt load and rollover risks make the bond market "susceptible to more frequent fiscal and inflation shocks," the report said. The IMF had warned last week that global public debt had reached near its highest level since World War II and was on track to soon exceed 100% of GDP.

"Impact could be severe given the foundational importance of sovereign bond markets," the IMF said Tuesday. A sharp rise in yields would mark down asset values through higher discount rates, including for AI-related assets, and erode the value of government bonds posted as collateral.

IMF also noted the exponentially rising borrowing by AI firms — that compete with sovereign bonds for investor demand — as an additional source of strain on bond markets. Hyperscalers' share of global investment-grade bond issuance has risen to 10% from less than 1% since 2024, the report said.

The global AI buildout has seen tech giants, such as Alphabet Inc's Google, Meta Platforms , hyperscalers and AI labs raising hundreds of billions of dollars in debt this year.

"AI-linked issuance – much of it longer-dated – has grown large enough to compete with government bonds for investor capital, even if it does not appear to be the dominant driver of yields," according to Marc Seidner, CIO of non-traditional strategies at Pacific Investment Management.

On the bright side, liquidity measures remain stable in the U.S., Europe and the U.K., the IMF said, and market functioning "has been orderly."

While hedge funds' leveraged Treasury basis trades have partly unwound without notable pressure in repurchase markets, the leverage that remains leaves the market "susceptible to a disorderly unwind," according to the report.

Hedge funds' share of U.S. Treasuries rose to about 9% in 2025 from about 4% in 2022, mostly through highly arbitraged strategies, the IMF said, citing data from the Federal Reserve.

Japan is the exception on liquidity, which has "continued to deteriorate" in its government bond market as yield volatility has risen since the end of yield curve control, the IMF said.

The fund urged debt managers to lengthen maturities, warning that rollover risk could be exacerbated by strategies that replace long-term debt with short-term borrowing on a large scale.