Negative sovereign yield maturities

The governments of Germany, Switzerland and Japan made news in the past year after selling negative yielding debt. A closer look at the issues shows that the majority of them were sold with a maturity of two years or less, with 79% of the Swiss issues maturing in less than one year. Switzerland was also the only country to issue debt with a term of longer than 10 years, although it only represented 6% of the issues.

Japan's issues were also primarily concentrated on the nearer end of the curve, with 87% of that country's debt issues maturing in two years or less. Germany was more aggressive, issuing a greater percentage of its overall offerings with five- or 10- year maturities.

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