Gary Shilling on ignoring Treasury yields (2010)

I've been a bull on 30-year Treasuries since 1981 since I said, in print, "We're entering the bond rally of a lifetime." Yields were at 15% then, they're now down, of course, to 3.7%, my goal is 3%. If that happens, you make another 14% appreciation in the coupon bond, and 24% on the 30-year zero. I've never, never, never bought Treasury bonds for yield. I couldn't care less what the yield is as long as it's going down. I buy for the same reason the professor [Jeremy Siegel] buys stocks-- appreciation.

The yield is insignificant, as far as I am concerned, as long as it's going down.

If we suddenly saw the economy take off like a scalded dog, consumers go from a savings spree back to their spendthrift ways, if we saw a rage of inflation rather than the deflation that I am forecasting, 3% deflation, you'd have to see a complete revival of the economy and an end of the deleveraging which has now taken over after three decades of leveraging up for the consumers and four decades for the financial sector [we could see bond yields go up].

~ Gary Shilling, president, A. Gary Shilling & Co., CNBC's Fast Money, August 18th, 2010