Safe Haven? No Thanks.

Another day, another move higher in Treasury yields and lower in bond prices.

The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) is trading at a fresh record low today and is on pace for its eighth straight day of declines. You would think that on the last day of an already weak quarter, there would at least be some buying as part of a rebalancing trade, but bond buyers seem to be completely on strike.

Through mid-day, TLT is down 10.0% quarter to date. For an asset class traditionally described as a safe haven, long-term Treasuries have been anything but safe, ranking among the worst-performing asset classes around the world. As bad as a 10.0% decline sounds, though, Q3 isn’t even the worst quarter for TLT in recent years.

Look at the chart above. Over the 19 quarters from Q1 2022, when the FOMC started hiking rates and exited the era of ZIRP, through this quarter, TLT is on pace for its sixth quarterly decline of at least 10%. In that same span, it has had only five quarters where it rose in price. More double-digit declines than gains of any size: not quite the track record you would expect from what has long been considered a safe haven. For some perspective, the last time the S&P 500 had six or more quarterly declines of at least 10% over a similar stretch was during the Great Depression.