It took a Greek fiscal debacle threatening to blow up Europe's common currency experiment, but global investors have finally rediscovered their love of US government bonds.
Treasuries were once seen as the safest of safe havens, but analysts recently have been beating up them on given worries over massive government borrowing and the Federal Reserve's experiment printing money to bail out a shaky banking system.
The debt crisis in Greece appears to have changed that, exposing flaws in a multinational euro currency system that was slow to react to a crisis. As a result, investors have been steaming into the safe harbour of the US Treasury market.
In doing so, they have set aside considerable worries over the US national debt as well as the recently held belief that the sun was setting on the dollar's era of pre-eminence. "It goes back to where do you want to hide and where is the safe haven. The more you cut through this it's still the dollar and Treasuries," said Bill Schultz, chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Indeed, the United States - home of the subprime mortgage crisis that brought down the global economy - is once again embraced as a good place to put money in bad times.
Things looked differently earlier this year when Pacific Investment Management Co, the world's biggest bond fund, said it was cutting its US exposure over deficit concerns, with its founder, Bill Gross, urging investors to be "vigilant." Dire scenes in Greece have shed a different light. Three people died this week in violent street protests in Athens against austere budget measures aimed at securing a bailout by eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.
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