Ninety One portfolio manager bets on Treasuries amid inflation concerns

While most of Wall Street has been piling into one side of the Treasury trade, a portfolio manager at Ninety One is doing something different. Jason Borbora-Sheen is betting that long-dated Treasuries are oversold and due for a comeback, built on a thesis that inflation is heading lower and that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s credibility will be vindicated.

The trade and the thesis

Borbora-Sheen’s strategy centers on a relative bet: 30-year Treasuries outperforming 10-year notes. That runs directly against the grain of the yield-curve steepener trade, which has been the consensus play among fixed-income managers for months.

Since July 2026, long-dated bonds have sold off sharply. That selloff created what Borbora-Sheen apparently sees as a mispricing, an opportunity to buy 30-year paper at levels that overcompensate for inflation risk.

The signal, in his reading, is that Warsh’s hawkish posture on inflation is more than rhetoric. Warsh has been emphatic about having “no soft inflation target,” a phrase designed to distinguish his approach from what some critics saw as a tolerance for above-target inflation during prior Fed leadership.

Warsh’s credibility gap

The Fed has kept its benchmark rate steady in the range of 3.50% to 3.75% during recent meetings, a level that suggests the central bank believes it has done enough tightening to bring inflation toward its 2% target. But progress toward that target has been uneven, sending mixed signals that have left bond traders uncertain about the rate path ahead.

Warsh’s communications in July 2026 triggered volatile swings in long-dated yields, a sign that investors were re-evaluating whether the Fed chair’s words would translate into action.

If Warsh’s policies do succeed in bringing inflation down durably, the market will have to reprice its doubts. That repricing would flow disproportionately into long-dated bonds, exactly where Borbora-Sheen is positioned.

What the fixed-income crowd is watching

Ninety One, the South Africa-born asset manager with a track record in active fixed-income strategies, manages assets across global fixed income, equities, and multi-asset strategies. Borbora-Sheen’s trade reflects that institutional willingness to go against the crowd when the risk-reward calculus looks favorable.

The key variable to watch is upcoming inflation data. If the next few readings show continued progress toward the 2% target, Borbora-Sheen’s trade could start working quickly. On the other hand, any resurgence in price pressures would validate the skeptics and extend the selloff that has defined the long end since midsummer.

If Warsh opts to cut rates later this year on the back of improving inflation, that would be a tailwind for the entire curve but especially for the 30-year, which stands to benefit most from lower rate expectations and declining term premium.