Bank of America: Bond market volatility is testing the AI bull market, with deleveraging risks heating up.

Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett’s latest warning flags that sharp volatility in the U.S. Treasury market is emerging as a new pressure source for risk assets. The MOVE index he tracks jumped roughly 35% over two trading days, reflecting heightened volatility in the financing system that uses U.S. Treasuries as core collateral. Hartnett warns that if the Global Financials ETF (ticker: IXG) falls below $125 while the MOVE index remains above 125, the market could enter a broader "risk-off deleveraging" phase. This would subject AI trades to more stringent interest rate tests. For some time, the resilience of tech giants’ earnings and AI-related capital expenditures have supported U.S. stocks, but rising long-term interest rates will simultaneously push up financing costs and valuation discount rates. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield briefly topped 5.2% last week, hitting its highest level since 2007; a prior Bank of America survey of fund managers also showed that "disorderly upward movement in bond yields" has overtaken the AI bubble as the market’s most feared tail risk. Hartnett’s core view is that rising yields alone do not necessarily end risk appetite; the truly dangerous combination is high yields paired with weak financial stocks. This would mean interest rates have shifted from a signal of economic expansion to a source of tightening liquidity and credit conditions; leveraged funds will be forced to reduce positions, and pressure could then spread from bonds to tech stocks, bank stocks, and other high-valuation assets. For AI bulls, the next key factors to watch are whether bond volatility eases, bank stocks stabilize, and long-term yields show signs of peaking. Bank of America continues to view yields as the primary potential threat to current economic and stock market expansion; once interest rate pressures ease, large-cap tech stocks could regain investor favor.