Bond Yield Analysis - Nvidia, US Treasury & Australian Government

FINS5512 gave me three bonds to compare across a six-year window that included a trade war, a pandemic, and the most aggressive rate-hiking cycle in decades: a US Treasury, an Australian government bond, and an Nvidia corporate bond - same approximate tenor and issue period, but very different yield behaviour throughout.

What I discovered: reading yield curves is really an exercise in understanding who issued the bond, why, and what the macro environment was doing at each point in time. The US Treasury moved almost mechanically with Fed policy. The Australian bond tracked the RBA but was also shaped by commodity prices and the AUD's safe-haven dynamics. Nvidia's bond was more sensitive to risk appetite, and the embedded call option added an asymmetry entirely absent from the government bonds.

The insight that stuck: the March 2020 liquidity crisis, where even government bonds sold off as investors panic-liquidated everything for cash, showed me that "safe asset" is a conditional label. Under extreme stress, the correlation structure of the entire fixed income market can break down.

Knowledge gained: the same interest rate change produces different price movements depending on duration, credit quality, embedded optionality, and issuer type. Understanding those differences is what fixed income analysis is actually about - not just reading the yield number.