Going Dutch: A closer look at the Netherlands' overlooked bonds

Flying back over the North Sea, following a recent trip to Amsterdam, my mind turned to the rarely discussed subject of Dutch Government bonds.

As per usual, prior to take off one of my fairly standard rituals is to check the latest 10 or 30 year yields, but typically my focus is on UK Gilts, US Treasuries or German Bunds. I first wanted to see what percentage of activity (by notional volume) Dutch Government Bonds made up of the EU total. We can see, by looking at MiFID data that for the YTD has consistency been around the 2-3% mark, with absolute volumes significantly below the likes of Germany, France and Italy. 

I also thought it would be interesting to see if the Dutch Government bond curve shifted much, as there has been plenty of media commentary on long end yields in particular, with France, the U.S. and the UK all frequently appearing in the news and we can see that the curve has steepened, with the vast majority of activity (unsurprisingly) around the 10 year point.

Given the ongoing macro themes, the majority of focus continues to be on the likes of France, Japan, the UK and the U.S. However, I wanted to highlight that using MiFID data, we can gain valuable insights into less liquid government bonds too.