Negative Rates Grow

Recently, we posted about negative interest rates for savings accounts in Denmark. Now, it appears that negative interest rates are sweeping Europe. Earlier this week, Germany sold five-year government bonds with a YTM of negative .08 percent. Normally, we would make sure to put an exclamation point after that sentence, but Finland auctioned off negative interest rate government bonds earlier this month. The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria, and Italy all also have negative YTM bonds outstanding. Even more unique, an entrepreneur in Denmark took out a small business loan at negative .0172 percent! In other words, she is actually being paid to borrow money. Sign us up! The negative interest rate phenomenon appears to have hit the U.S as JPMorgan Chase announced that it would start charging some institutional clients to hold their money.