High-Yield Won’t Bubble Over
It’s easy to spot a bubble after it bursts. Just follow the carnage—significant, and sometimes complete, losses for investors. It’s not so easy to pinpoint a bubble beforehand, but many are convinced that there’s too much air rushing into high-yield bonds today.
read moreLooking Under the Hood at High-Yield Bank Loans
Ashish Shah, Gershon Distenfeld and Ivan Rudolph-Shabinsky When you’re shopping for a car, you take a look under the hood to see what makes the thing run. You also check out the car’s features: does it have heated seats, a rear-view camera, a GPS?
read moreHigh-Yield Bank Loans: Look Before You Leap
Ashish Shah, Gershon Distenfeld and Ivan Rudolph-Shabinsky High-yield bank loans are a hot topic again in capital markets, with features touted as ideal for today’s environment. But we think it makes sense to take a closer look at what bank loans really are—and aren’t. In our opinion, there are a few holes in the case [...]
read moreDo TIPS Pose a Hidden Risk to Seekers of Inflation Protection?
Treasury-inflation protected securities, or TIPS, have been a popular choice for investors concerned about future inflation. And TIPS’ returns have been impressive in recent years. But the main contributor to TIPS’ performance isn’t inflation. It’s an ingredient that could become as hurtful down the road as it’s been helpful in the past.
read moreGlobal Bonds: Protection in Down Markets
As US Treasury yields continue to plumb record lows, some have quipped that government bonds have gone from offering risk-free returns to “return-free risk.” Indeed, when interest rates inevitably rise from their current levels, bondholders face the prospect of poor or even negative returns.
read moreIs Your Global Bond Fund Riskier than You Thought?
Global bond funds continue to attract strong inflows as near-zero interest rates lead many investors to look abroad for assets with attractive yields. As we’ve argued before, global bonds provide many important benefits, but it’s crucial that investors select the right type of fund.
read moreLDI: More on Going Global in Bonds
For liability-driven investors, exposure to global bonds offers important benefits: a strong correlation to domestic debt, with greatly reduced volatility. However, these are not the only positives. Today, we’ll look at some other important benefits—such as greatly expanding the investable universe and offering a natural hedge against the tail risk of a domestic credit crisis—and [...]
read moreLDI: How Large an Allocation to Global Bonds?
Liability-driven investors can reap significant benefits from globalizing their long-duration bond portfolios, but how much should they sow? How large an allocation to nondomestic bonds is appropriate? Our research suggests that even a modest allocation can meaningfully improve an LDI portfolio’s risk-adjusted return potential.
read moreLDI: The Case for Going Global in Bonds
Despite compelling evidence in favor of global diversification, investors in many markets around the world continue to have a strong “home bias”—a preference for domestic over foreign assets. Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than in the ranks of liability-driven investors. But our research shows that LDI investors, too, can reap significant benefits from going [...]
read moreGlobal Bonds: Avoiding Unintended Consequences
More and more, global bonds are being used as core portfolios for investors seeking an anchor to windward for their stock investments. While this is generally a good thing, some investors are discovering that the decision to go global can have unintended consequences: certain global bond portfolios have much higher volatility than is usually associated [...]
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