The Biggest Surprise of the Global Bond-Market Butchering

The biggest surprise from the selloff in global bond markets may be that fixed-income investors are signaling that they don’t expect central banks to pull away the punch bowl anytime soon.

While more than $400 billion has been lost in May, much of that has been due to a tumble on longer-maturity bond prices as their yields rose. By contrast, yields on bonds worldwide coming due in one to three years -- those most tied to interest-rate expectations -- have remained little changed, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show.