Tariff War Shock and the Convenience Yield of US Treasuries — A Hedging Perspective

We explain how the “Tariff War” shock of April 2025 affected the safe-asset status of US Treasuries. Convenience yield erosion for long bonds is consistent with a reduction in the hedging property, reflected in a rising stock-bond covariance. Decomposing the Treasury yield into risk-free rate, credit spread, and convenience yield components reveals that covariance due to the convenience yield component increased for long bonds. The short end of the Treasury curve, however, continued to exhibit the safe-asset hedging property. These effects are consistent with a withdrawal of safe-asset investors from long-term Treasuries and a rotation towards shorter-term Treasuries and gold.