An Overview of Global Fixed Income Markets
This overview begins with a snapshot of fixed income markets across the globe and continues with concise reviews of fixed income markets in the United States, Europe, and Japan. These reviews have three goals: one, to describe how households and institutions achieve their borrowing and investing objectives through fixed income markets; two, to highlight the magnitude of the amounts of securities outstanding and of the balance sheets of market participants; and three, to emphasize the themes that are particularly relevant and significant for understanding today’s markets.
A SNAPSHOT OF GLOBAL FIXED INCOME MARKETS
While fixed income markets are truly global, the vast majority of securities originate in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Figure 0.1 shows the notional amounts outstanding of debt securities by residence of issuer, arranged in order of decreasing size. The largest markets by far are in the United States, the Eurozone, Japan, and the United Kingdom. (The Eurozone includes countries that are part of the European Union and also use the Euro as their currency.) The amounts outstanding for many Eurozone countries are shown individually in the graph, and indicated with asterisks, because several of these markets rank among the largest in the world on their own.
Figure 0.1 Debt Securities by Residence of Issuer as of March 2010
Source: Bank for International Settlements.
Derivative securities do not have an issuer in the same ...
