Asia’s emerging economies are poised to withstand rising U.S. yields - S&P

CNBC reports that according to a report by S&P Global Ratings, rising U.S. bond yields will not hurt Asia’s emerging markets as badly as they did during the “taper tantrum” eight years ago.

“Taper tantrum” describes the surge in U.S. Treasury yields in 2013 after the Fed said it would wind down its quantitative easing .

“Not all yield shocks are created equal,” Shaun Roache, S&P’s Asia-Pacific chief economist, said in a press release on Wednesday.

U.S. Treasury yields have been ticking higher for weeks, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hit a high of 1.689% on Wednesday, its highest level since January 2020.

Roache explained that U.S. yields are rising in response to hopes that better economic growth will lift inflation. And Asia is usually a “prime beneficiary” of improving global growth, he said.

In addition, current economic conditions in Asia allow the region to better guard against external shocks compared to 2013, said S&P. Those conditions include current account surpluses, generally low inflation, higher real interest rates and higher foreign-exchange reserve buffers, the ratings agency said.

Still, risks remain. The economist said Asia’s recovery could be threatened if markets view the Fed as underestimating inflation risk, resulting in U.S. yields rising very quickly and the U.S. dollar appreciating at the same time.