Amidst stock-market-like volatility, there is a surge of retail investor interest in bond markets, with Treasury ETFs being particularly attractive.

Bond investments were primarily dominated by institutional funds before the pandemic, sheltered from the retail-trading world. It was challenging for fixed-income portfolio managers and analysts to find returns in a global environment with low or negative interest rates. Pension funds and money-market vehicles struggled to find minimal returns and some investors took risks in high-risk emerging markets. By the end of 2020, the yield to maturity on a 100-year Austrian government bond had dropped to 0.4%. However, as central banks implemented stimulus measures, the market value of negative-yield bonds reached $18.4 trillion but dropped to $1.3 trillion by July 2023. These market fluctuations led to retail traders entering the fixed-income market and discussing economic variables on social media platforms. Retail traders have shown interest in bond-linked ETFs like TLT and ZROZ. The number of users monitoring TLT has increased by 16% compared to the previous year. Additionally, retail traders have been exploring Treasury-leveraged ETFs to potentially gain more during the period of bond market volatility.