Investors revolting against negative yields in Europe wiped 142 billion euros (US$160 billion) off the value of the region's government bonds this week, heading for the biggest selloff since at least October 1993.

With Bill Gross and DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach among investors saying it's time to sell bunds, the value of European bonds dropped to 5.75 trillion euros Thursday, the least since March 4, Bank of America Merrill Lynch data show. Germany's 10-year yields completed their biggest two-day climb since November 2011 as signs of euro-area inflation prompted traders to pare bets the European Central Bank's (ECB's) quantitative easing will drive up prices on the continent's benchmark debt.

"Yields had gotten to levels where any investor who had discretion around where they want to put their money would not want to own these bonds as a long-term proposition," said Peter Jolly, the Sydney-based head of market research at National Australia Bank Ltd., the nation's largest lender by assets. "It was always unreasonable to my mind that, just because the ECB was buying bonds, that yields had to be jammed to the floor."