At the head of all economies, United States with a debt volume that exceeds 38 trillion dollarswhich represents 125% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). China follows with about 18.7 trillion dollars (93% of GDP), although if private and corporate debt is added to that figure it reaches 300%. And a striking and chronic case is that of Japan with 10 trillion dollars of debt, around 230% of its GDP.
The European Union as a whole moves around 81% of GDP and in the case of Spain it reaches 100% (1.7 billion euros), with even greater debt for Italy or France. The fear that this debt will have problems refinancing emerges from time to time in the markets as a gigantic threat to investors and can also partially explain the strength of real investments such as physical gold.
But the forecasts of the doomsayers about the world debt, which according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will reach 100% of the world’s GDP by the end of this decade, never come to pass. There are momentary scares such as the most recent episode in France, the fear that US bonds will greatly increase their yields due to the departure of investors or a Japan with a very large chronic debt.
A song that is repeated year after year but never stops playing. Losses in debt markets were due to inflationary tensions after the Covid-19 pandemicbut last year profits returned to these markets, the result of lower interest rates and the appreciation of the bond to adjust to that reality. And in 2026, despite the accumulated depreciation of the dollar that makes it uninteresting to invest in the greenback, the interest rates on its debt fall slightly, once again generating capital gains in the price of the bond that currently offers a profitability of 4.098%, when the year began at 4.153%. The same could be said of the Spanish bond, now with a profitability of 3.182%, which at the end of 2025 stood at 3.292%. Even the French 10-year bond has also fallen from 3.56% in December to the current 3.32% (we have already gotten used to the French paying more for their debt than us).
An evolution in the secondary debt market that shows strength with the purchase of bonds that allow yields to be lowered. And, at the moment, there is no talk of central bank interventions that would be useless in the event of a massive exit of investors.
The problem of public debt is there and no one can cover up those gigantic figures that grow year after year with the increase in deficits. But the expected crack never arrives. Apart from political considerations, a market that is often intervened during crises, a large part of the financial market is built on this debt.
The huge money in fixed income investment funds is mainly fed by this public role. Financial entities have large investments in bonds from different States. No one is interested in opening the door to the capacity to pay the debt while the interest is being collected (many times with the issuance of more debt). The ferocious wolf of debt still does not appear in Pedrito’s story, although it is there increasingly robust and lurking..