European Rates Watch: EGB supply, positioning & flows

Research evidence excerpt

European Rates Watch: EGB supply, positioning & flows

Accessible version

European Rates Watch

EGB supply, positioning & flows

Futures positioning: Front-end back in favour 17 July 2026

Outstanding: Across the German curve, DU remains the most net-long contract Rates Research

followed by UB (Exhibit 11). In contrast, positioning in OE and RX is net short. In Italian Europe

contracts, investors are net long in IK as well as BTS, although the latter being more

European Rates Research

moderate. Meanwhile, net positioning in OATs is lightly net short. MLI (UK)

Edvard Davidsson

Weekly change (Wed-Wed): Net positioning was led by new shorts added in DU and Rates Strategist

RX futures. Positioning in remaining German as well as Italian and French contracts MLI (UK)

edvard.davidsson@bofa.com

remain broadly unchanged (Exhibit 12).

Sphia Salim

Rates Strategist

MLI (UK)Dutch pension funds: domestics and barbells sphia.salim@bofa.com

Ahead of 2026, we discussed in Dutch pension funds, 17 Nov '25 the potential impact of

Nathan Thomas, CFA

the Dutch pension fund reform on EGB demand, arguing that fears of broad-based Rates Strategist

selling could be overdone. While it is early to draw firm conclusions, the Q1 ECB data MLI (UK) nathan.thomas@bofa.com

and the EIOPA data are so far supportive of our view (Exhibit 27). The former shows net

buying of debt securities by PFs (see Global Rates Weekly 10-July). The later indicates

that exposure to EGBs specifically has increased by €12bn (albeit not transaction data).

Core: Dutch PFs’ largest EGB exposures are in core markets. This is also where Dutch PF For a list of all our open trades

holdings represent the largest share of outstanding debt (Exhibit 26). If Dutch PFs were and trade closed over the past 12