The Causes and Consequences of More Volatile Bonds

Notes on the Week Ahead

Since the advent of modern financial markets, bonds have always had the reputation of being conservative – rather like an elderly family lawyer in a leather-bound chair frowning at more jumpy and excitable stocks. Bonds would never make you rich. However, they would provide you with a moderate, steady and dependable income.

This reputation was challenged in the 1970s and 1980s by Treasuries yielding more than 10%, in the wake of high inflation, and the explosive growth of the high-yield market. In the decades that followed, yields drifted down in parallel with inflation but investor excitement was maintained by a steady stream of capital gains as well as income. However, once monetary easing hit its peak in the days following the Great Financial Crisis, high-quality bond yields fell to levels that promised very little income and, at best, modest capital losses, assuming yields eventually recovered.