The setup
The strategic backdrop for German rates is unusual: a central bank that has just delivered its first hike since 2023 and framed it with conviction, layered on top of the largest sovereign supply wave in modern German history and a balance sheet in run-off. That combination caps the bull case for Bunds even as it raises the carry. The 10-year yields about 2.93 percent and the 2-year Schatz about 2.63 percent, leaving a positive but flat curve. The post-Hormuz growth and oil relief has pulled the long end down from its highs, but the structural forces - hawkish policy, heavy issuance, QT - argue against a sustained rally from here.
The carry trade
The cleanest way to own Bunds in 2026 is for the carry, not the capital gain. After fifteen years in which German duration paid little or negative income, a positive real yield at decade highs makes the Bund a genuine income asset again. For liability-driven investors, insurers and reserve managers, that is a meaningful regime change: German duration can once again do its job of paying to hold safety. The case is for income and ballast, not for a duration-led total-return bet, because the supply wave and the hawkish ECB cap how far yields can fall. Buy Bunds to be paid and protected, not to be carried higher by a rally that the structural setup does not support.
The 2026 Bund is the mirror image of the 2019 Bund. Then it was an expensive scarcity asset with negative yield and large capital-gain potential as yields fell further. Now it is a cheaper, more abundant asset with positive real carry and limited capital-gain potential. The trade is income, not duration beta.
Curve and relative value
On the curve, the flat 2s10s offers limited compensation for duration extension, which argues for staying in the belly - the 5-to-7-year sector - where the carry-to-duration trade-off is most favourable and the supply pressure on the long end is avoided. The structural call is for a steeper curve over the medium term as the supply wave weighs on the long end and the ECB eventually normalises the front; positioning for steepening via the long end is a medium-term theme rather than an immediate trade given the post-war rally. In relative value, the Bund remains the benchmark against which periphery and semi-core are priced, and the striking feature of 2026 is how tight those spreads are.
| Trade | View | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Bund carry (belly) | Own | Positive real yield, best risk/reward |
| Long-end duration | Neutral | Supply caps the rally |
| 2s10s steepener | Medium-term | Supply + eventual ECB normalisation |
| OAT-Bund | Watch | French fiscal/political noise |
| BTP-Bund | Tight | Compressed; limited cushion |
The spread question
The conventional euro-rates risk is periphery widening, and in 2026 that risk is unusually quiet: the OAT-Bund spread sits near 69 basis points on French political and fiscal noise, while Italian and other peripheral spreads have compressed to multi-year tights, with the France-Italy gap narrowing toward a handful of basis points. The ECB's backstop, a calmer political backdrop and strong demand for euro duration have kept fragmentation at bay. The less conventional risk - and the one this desk watches more closely - is that the German supply wave lifts the entire euro curve, raising every sovereign's financing cost and exposing the most stretched, France above all, before the periphery. The benchmark is heavy, and a heavy benchmark drags the chain.
The practical conclusion is to favour the core carry trade, stay neutral-to-cautious on long-end duration, treat the periphery's tight spreads as offering too little cushion for the political risk they carry, and watch French OATs as the most likely source of the next euro-rates wobble.