Over the last 20 years, long-term bonds have outperformed stocks (350% vs. 284%). Needless to say, this outcome will come as a surprise to many… (Note: in this post I’m using the S&P 500 Index Fund (VFINX) as the proxy for “stocks” and the Vanguard Long-Term Investment Grade Bond Fund (VWESX) as the proxy for […]
In December 2008, as the “world was ending,” US junk bonds hit a record high yield of 23.26%. Forecasts of financial Armageddon were widespread, and few could envision a scenario in which subordinated bondholders would receive anything but pain. Note: throughout this post, we use the ICE BofA US High Yield Index as the high […]
Over the past 40 years, there has been a one-way trend in US Treasury Bond Yields: down. US 10-Year Treasury Yield…September 1980: 11.6%September 1985: 10.4%September 1990: 8.9%September 1995: 6.2%September 2000: 5.9%September 2005: 4.3%September 2010: 2.8%September 2015: 2.2%September 2020: 0.7% — Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) September 18, 2020 If you’re a bond investor, that has been a […]
The yield on investment grade corporate bonds has moved all the way down to 2.35%. If the month ended today, that would be the lowest monthly close in history. Why is this important? Because the single best predictor of future returns for bonds are its starting yield. On average, the higher the starting yield, the […]
High Yield credit spreads are lower today than they were during market corrections in 2011 and 2016. The same is true for Investment Grade credit spreads. Why is this notable? There were no recessions in 2011 or 2016 and today were are faced with what could be the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. […]
What returns are you expecting from bonds over the next five years? If you’re like most investors, your answer is probably too high. Why? Because of something called recency bias, the human tendency to give more weight to the recent past in making projections about the future. And why is that a problem today? Because […]