Bond market liquidity

The reduction in bond market liquidity due to the decline in bank risk appetite and increased capital requirement.

Lack of liquidity bad for big bond funds - FT.com: "In 2007 bond fund managers were able to trade bonds at bid/offer spreads of 0.25 per cent. That widened to 2-3 per cent at the height of the crisis from September 2008 to March 2009. Trading spreads subsequently fell back to 0.4-0.5 per cent but have since crept up again to about 1 per cent on fears of the European sovereign debt crisis. Mr Davidson says: “It’s clear the banks don’t want any credit instruments on their books, especially given everything that’s going on in peripheral Europe.”

As a result, he adds, anyone managing a bond fund with assets of £1bn ($1.6bn) or more – with individual holdings of £10m plus – has their hands pretty much tied, “unless they resort to the euro market for greater cash liquidity or the CDS [credit default swap] market for greater active liquidity – but they’d be giving away yield in both cases. It is taking people a long time to trade out of an accumulated position of over £100m in a single, not very liquid bond.”"