{"id":26978,"date":"2012-01-30T10:53:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T15:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/fx\/2012\/01\/30\/investing-in-german-bonds-with-etfs\/"},"modified":"2012-01-30T10:53:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T15:53:03","slug":"investing-in-german-bonds-with-etfs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2012\/01\/30\/investing-in-german-bonds-with-etfs\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing in German Bonds with ETFs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If there is one word that summarizes the choppy, volatile year that was 2011, it would be \u201cEurope.\u201d\u00a0 Last year the market lived or died based on developments (or lack thereof) in the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis.\u00a0 When they weren\u2019t running to the safety of U.S. treasuries, they ran to the (relative) safety of German bunds.\u00a0 With the periphery of Europe threatening to descend into chaos, mighty German seemed a rock of stability.<\/p>\n

Today, getting access to the German bond market is as easy as buying a share of General Electric or Wal-Mart with the arrival of the ProShares German Sovereign\/Sub-Sovereign ETF (NYSE: $<\/span>GGOV<\/a>).<\/strong>\u00a0 The ETF gives investors access to euro-denominated bonds issued by the Federal Republic of Germany, the state governments of Germany, and various federal and state agencies.<\/p>\n

Before, it was somewhat difficult for individual investors (and even professional traders) to get access to the German bond market.\u00a0 The world\u2019s bond markets are far more opaque than the respective stock markets, and few of the popular retail brokers gave their clients ready access.\u00a0 Buying a foreign bond meant going through the bond desk and often paying a frustratingly large bid-ask spread.\u00a0 In other words, it wasn\u2019t easy and it wasn\u2019t cheap.\u00a0 But now with GGOV, you can have instant exposure to German bond market with a click of the mouse.<\/p>\n

But while buying German bonds is now easy, this doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it\u2019s a good idea.\u00a0\u00a0 The 10-year bund yields a pitiful 1.85 percent, according to Bloomberg.\u00a0 This is even lower than the less-than-inspiring 1.87 percent offered by the 10-year U.S. Treasury note.\u00a0 At a sub-2-percent yield, German bunds are not worth buying for income.<\/p>\n

For dollar-based investors, German bunds could be a way to get exposure to a rally in the euro.\u00a0 But for most investors, there are easier and more direct ways to trade the euro that don\u2019t involve interest rate risk.<\/p>\n

And we must not forget the elephant in the room; if the European debt crisis takes a turn for the worse and Germany finds itself in the unenviable position of having to bail out the rest of the Eurozone, how safe is Germany\u2019s AAA credit rating, and would bunds still be considered the safe haven they are today?<\/p>\n

There is no good way to answer this question, of course, but it certainly makes me think twice before putting capital at risk.\u00a0 To paraphrase a\u00a0 quote from newsletter writer Jim Grant, at current low yields government bonds no longer represent a risk-free return.\u00a0 Instead, they offer a return-free risk.<\/p>\n

If you are going to put capital at risk, you should expect a reasonable return on your investment.\u00a0 You\u2019re not going to get that with shares of GGOV at current prices and yields.<\/p>\n

This does not mean that Europe is without its attractions.\u00a0 In my view, blue-chip European multinationals offer some of the best potential returns in the world at current prices.\u00a0 In the Sizemore Investment Letter<\/em><\/a>, I\u2019ve highlighted plenty, including Spain\u2019s Telefonica (NYSE: $<\/span>TEF<\/a>)<\/strong> and the Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever (NYSE: $<\/span>UL<\/a>)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Investors looking for a one-stop ETF option should consider the iShares MSCI Germany ETF (NYSE: $<\/span>EWG<\/a>)<\/strong>.\u00a0 EWG is a basket of Germany largest and most globally diversified blue chips.\u00a0 With a dividend of 3.51 percent, you\u2019re getting nearly double the yield of GGOV with the possibility of substantial capital gains in 2012.<\/p>\n

If you liked this article by Sizemore Insights<\/em>, you\u2019d probably enjoy The Sizemore Investment Letter<\/em>, our premium members-only newsletter. Click here<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter If there is one word that summarizes the choppy, volatile year that was 2011, it would be \u201cEurope.\u201d\u00a0 Last year the market lived or died based on developments (or lack thereof) in the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis.\u00a0 When they weren\u2019t running to the safety of U.S. treasuries, they ran to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Investing in German Bonds with ETFs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}