Goldman Sachs Explains Why Not to Buy the 5%+ Bonds and Rather Stick to AI

Goldman Sachs’ Anshul Sehgal says bonds yielding 5% or more are not the best trade right now. He still favors AI infrastructure, which he sees as a far more asymmetric bet than the long bond.

Sehgal, a global co-head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) at the bank, laid out the view just a few days after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates.

Why Goldman Sachs Is Passing on 5%+ Bonds

On Goldman’s The Markets, Sehgal said the 30-year Treasury, known as the long bond, had hovered around 5% for weeks. He noted that clients want to buy it at 5% or higher, yet he still sees little upside.

The yield has kept climbing since the recording, reaching 5.56% on September 29, a new 52-week high. Sehgal blamed structural pressure for the strain on the long end. Retiring baby boomers are buying fewer long bonds, and heavy long-dated borrowing tied to AI is crowding the market.

Those pressures explain why the selloff can persist even without a fresh inflation shock. Fewer retirees buying long bonds and a steady flow of long-dated borrowing tied to AI both weigh on prices, and neither fades quickly.

Sehgal adds that fear over US debt sustainability makes investors less willing to hold the long end, which feeds on itself.

The takeaway is that a rising yield does not necessarily break his thesis. It may instead show why he sees limited reward in owning the bond, while the risk to his AI trade is that costlier long-term borrowing squeezes the levered companies he favors.

AI Compute Is the Asymmetric Trade

An asymmetric trade offers far more potential gain than risk. Sehgal applies that label to compute (AI computing power), data centers, and Neoclouds, which are cloud providers built to rent out that capacity.

“I think the asymmetric expression is being long compute.”

Anshul Sehgal, Goldman

The catch is leverage. Savers collecting higher interest have effectively financed the AI build-out, leaving equities more indebted than a year ago. Sehgal admits these are levered bets. Still, he thinks they can multiply in value, while the wider stock market looks less certain.

Tighter Policy Hits Spenders, Not Capital

Sehgal says the Fed frames its September 16 hike as catch-up after five years above its inflation target. Schwab counts 16 of 19 Fed officials expecting another increase this year. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh also stressed three times that the Fed is easing back some stimulus rather than turning restrictive, Sehgal adds.

He argues that government interest payments flow to capital rather than workers, so higher rates curb household spending, a risk for the broader stock market.

He also rejects the debt-sustainability fears weighing on long bonds.

“For me, that’s a red herring.”

Anshul Sehgal, Goldman

Meanwhile, BlackRock’s Rick Rieder is cutting equities for bonds paying 7% to 8%, though his high-grade bond call still cautions against rushing into the 10-year Treasury.

Sehgal names the Middle East conflict as the top driver of policy and markets in the weeks ahead.