(Bloomberg) — No amount of reassuring rhetoric by Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the Federal Reserve can prevent markets' overreaction when benchmark interest rates start heading higher.
That's the conclusion of Deutsche Bank AG economists Joseph LaVorgna and Brett Ryan after studying turns in Fed policy in the past two decades.
Take 1994, the annus horribilis for bond traders. The selloff of the 10-year note sent its yield up 203 basis points as the Fed raised its benchmark by 250 basis points, according to Bloomberg data.
In 1999, the Fed began boosting rates in June, extending a decline that left the yield up 179 basis points in the year. By 2003, disappointment the Fed didn't cut more deeply was reflected in a rise in yields of 43 basis points over the year with a surge of more than a percentage point in the third quarter.
Even a rate cut in January 1996 was followed by a rise in 10-year rates of 85 basis points over the course of the year as signs of economic strength led investors to rein in forecasts of more reductions.
That takes us to 2013, when a signal that the Fed would soon start winding down bond purchases generated the "taper tantrum." The yield ended the year 127 basis points higher than where it began.
'Swift and violent'
